GIFT  OF 

Grace  E.Barnard 


1 


Education  Dept 


n     . 


/f^^     ctW-^'^^^^^  *^' 


L  E  V  A  N  A. 


LEVANA; 


OB, 


THE   DOCTRINE  OF  EDUCATION. 


BY 

JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDIIICH   RICHTER. 


tonalatcb  from  tljc  (l^crman. 


PRECEDED  BY 


A   SHORT  BIOGRAPHY  OF  THE  AUTHOR,  AND  HIS 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY,  A  FRAGMENT. 


BOSTON : 

D.   C.   HEATH  &  COMPANY. 

1890. 


LBloJS 


^.  /^^yi^u^A^X 


EDUCATION  DEPX, 


PREFACE 


TO  THE 

ORIGINAL  TRANSLATION   OF  LEVANA. 


At  a  time  when  the  public  mind  is  so  fully  awakened  to  the 
importance  of  education,  it  appeared  to  the  Translator  that  the 
thoughts  of  one  of  the  greatest  Germans  on  the  subject  were 
worthy  of  deep  consideration ;  and  he  offers  them  with  the  more 
satisfaction  because  he  believes  it  impossible  either  for  the 
advocates  or  for  the  opponents  of  the  government  scheme  of 
education  to  draw  offensive  weapons  from  this  arsenal.  For 
Lev  ANA  treats  neither  of  national  nor  congregational  education ; 
it  elevates  neither  state  nor  priest  into  educator ;  but  it  devolves 
that  duty,  where  the  interest  ever  ought  to  be,  on  the  parents, 
and  particularly  on  the  mother. 

It  is  far  from  the  Translator's  object  to  disparage  the  great 
efforts  now  making  to  improve  the  state  of  popular  education  ; 
but  he  believes  that,  in  propounding  general  systems,  it  is  too 
much  forgotten  that  real  education  is  i^e  work  of  individuals  on 
individuals.  ]  It  may  be  necessary — it  is  necessary — to  provide 
instruction,  and,  as  far  as  possible,  education,  for  the  classes  who 
are  too  ignorant  to  seek  it  for  themselves.  But  let  us  not,  in  the 
mania  for  systems,  forget  how  little  these  alone  can  effect.  And, 
farther  we  would  ask,  is  the  education  of  the  upper  classes  so 
perfect  that  they  may  leave  all  care  for  it  to  watch  over  only  that 
of  the  lower  ?  If  there  be  much  of  crime— the  acknowledged 
consequence  of  ignorance— among  the  masses,  is  there  less  of 
vice— the  equally  sure  accompaniment  of  bad  edacation— among 
the  higher  grades  of  society  ? 

In  the  belief  that  Levana  may  tend  much  to  ameliorate  that 
department  of  education  which  is  most  neglected  and  needs  most 
care — home  training  —  the  Translator  makes  no  apology  for 
clothing  it  in  an  English  dress.  He  is,  indeed,  surprised  that  it 
has  not  previously  been  presented  to  the  English  reader.    But 


56772G 


vi  translator's  preface. 

like  all  Eichter's  writings,  Levana  is  peculiarly  characterised 
by  that  union  of  qualities  called  in  England — "  German."  This 
feature,  especially  when  displayed  in  a  work  on  so  serious  a 
subject  as  education,  and  being  most  strongly  marked  in  the 
introductory  chapters,  on  which  the  reception  of  a  book  so  much 
depends,  may  have  led  to  its  being  considered  unsuitable  to 
English  taste.  The  early  part  indeed,  may  cause  many  to  close 
the  book  who  would  find  much  both  to  interest  and  instruct  in 
a  patient  perusal  of  the  whole  work,  combining  as  it  does,  in  a 
remarkable  degree,  sound  practical  sense  with  fanciful  and  varied 
illustration.  The  acknowledged  difficulty  of  Eichter's  style  has 
also,  doubtless,  had  a  deterring  effect.  Those  who  are  acquainted 
with  liis  writings  will  be  able  to  appreciate  the  difficulties  which 
have  beset  the  Translator,  and  will  be  the  least  inclined  to  judge 
harshly  the  shortcomings  of  the  translation,  as  compared  with 
its  'great  original.  For  who — save  Carlyle — can  hope  to  do 
justice  to  the  humorous,  pathetic,  poetic  Eichter ;  to  him  whom 
his  countrymen  call  "  Jean  Paul,  der  Einzige  "  ? 

The  Translator  thinks  it  right  to  add  that  he  has  occasionally 
omitted,  or  compressed,  a  few  sentences,  where  the  general 
usefulness  of  the  work  was  obviously  increased  by  so  doing. 
This  discretion  has,  however,  been  very  sparingly  used,  and  in 
no  case  so  as  to  interfere  with  the  scope  of  the  original. 

A.H. 
Liverpool,  1848. 


PREFACE   TO   THIS   EDITION. 

In  this  edition,  the  passages  alluded  to  above  have  been 
inserted  in  full,  and  the  whole  work  has  undergone  a  careful 
revision  under  the  eye  of  the  original  translator. 

The  Autobiography  is  here  for  the  first  time  published  in  this 
country ;  as  it  deals  only  with  the  earlier  portion  of  the  author's 
life  it  has  been  supplemented  by  a  short  memoir  condensed  from 
the  enthusiastic  biography  by  E.  Forster  Both  these  are  by 
another  translator. 


CONTENTS 


PAOB 

PREFACE  TO  TUE  Original  Translation  op  Levana  .       t 

PREFACE  TO  THIS  Edition  ......      vi 

BIOGRAPHY .       xi 


AUTOBIOGKAPHY. 

LECTURE  I.     Wonsiedel— Birth— Grandfather      ...        a 

TiECTURE  II.    Embracing  the  period  from  Ist  of  August, 
1765,  to  the  9th  of  January,  1776— Joditz— Village  Idyls        .       14 

LECTURE   III.  (with  three  Supplements).    Schwarzonbach- 
on-the-Saale — Kiss — Rector — Lord's  Supper  .         .         .52 


LEVANA; 

OR, 

THE  D  CTEINE  OF  EDUCATION. 

FIRST  FRAGMENT. 

CnAP.  I.  Importance  of  Education 83 

II.  Inaugural  Discourse  at  the  Johanneum-Paullinum ; 

or  Proof  that  Education  effects  little     .         .         .80 
IIL  lin|)ortanoe  of  Education 9d 


Vlll 


CONTENTS. 


SECOND  FRAGMENT.  pagb 

Chap.  I.  Spirit  and  Principle  of  Education    ....  lUCi 
II.  To  discover  and  to  appreciate  the  Individuality  of 

the  Ideal  Man Ill 

III.  On  the  Spirit  of  the  Age 117 

IV.  Religious  Education 125 


THIRD  FRAGMENT. 

/  I.  The  Beginning  of  Education 

/  II.  The  Joyousness  of  Children 

III.  Games  of  Children 

IV.  Children's  Dances 
V.  Music  . 

VI.  Commands,  Prohibitions 
VII.  Punishments 
VIII.  Screaming  and  Crying  of  Children 
IX.  On  the  Trustfulness  of  Children 


Punishments,  and  Crying 


137 
146 
151 
162 
164 
166 
173 
179 
183 


Appendix  to  the  Thikd  Fragment.    On  Physical  Education  .     188 
CoMio  Appendix   and   Epilogue   to   the  Fikst  Volume.    A 
dreamed  Letter  to  the  late  Professor  Gellert,  in  which 
the  Author  begs  for  a  Tutor 205 


FOURTH  FRAGMENT.    On  Female  Education. 

Chap.  1 216 

II.  On  the  Destination  of  the  Female  Sex     .         .         .222 

III.  Nature  of  Girls      ...                   ...  227 

IV.  Education  of  Girls 238 

V.  Private  Instructions  of  a  Prince  to  the  Governess  of 

his  Daughter 269 


FIFTH  FRAGMENT. 
Chap.  I.  On  the  Education  of  a  Prince 


281 


SIXTH  FRAGMENT.    On  the  Moral  Education  op  Boys. 

Chap.  1 311 

—     II.  Truthfulness 329 

III.  Education  of  the  Affections 338 

IV.  Supplementary  Appendix  to  Moial  Education  .         .  350 


CONTENTS.  IX 

BEVENTH  FRAGMENT.  hagb 
Chap.  I.  On  the  De\elopnient  of  the  Desire  for  Intellectual 

Progress     ........  86(j 

II.  Speech  and  Writing 309 

III.  Attention,  and  the  Power  of  Adaptive  Combination  .  875 

IV.  Development  of  Wit 382 

V.  Development  of    Reflection,   Abstraction,    and    Self- 

Knowledge ;  together  with  an  extra  Paragraph  on 

the  Powers  of  Action  and  Business        .          .          .  3^7 

VI.  On   the  Education  of  the  Recollection — not  of  the 

Memory     .         .         .         .         .  ■       .         .         .  3S9 

EIGHTH  FRAGMENT. 

Chap.  I.  Development  of  the  Sense  of  Beauty         .         .         .  31>5 
II.  Classical  Education         .         .         .         .         .         .400 

NINTH  FRAGMENT,  or  Key-stone 40S 


BIOGRAPHY. 

§  1.    Birth. — Parentage. —Early  Years. 

In  the  spring  of  the  year  1763  Jean  Paul  Friedrich 
Richter  was  born  at  Wonsiedel,  a  town  of  Baireuth,  in 
Bavaria,  on  the  range  of  hills  known  as  the  Fichtelgebirge. 
His  father,  Johann  Christian  Giiristoph  Richter,  was  the 
son  of  a  schoolmaster  of  Neustadt,  of  whom  little  is  known 
but  that  he  was  "  poor  and  pious  in  a  high  degree." 
Both  these  characteristics  Paul's  father  appears  to  have 
inherited,  though  perhaps  in  a  somewhat  modified 
measure.  He  was  a  man  of  stern  and  uncompromising 
but  cheerful  and  kind  disposition,  with  a  vigorous  nature 
which  could  hold  its  own  against  the  ills  of  life.  Paul's 
mother,  Sophia  Rosina,  was  the  daughter  of  Johann  Paul 
Kuhn,  a  clotii- weaver  of  the  neighbouring  village  of  Hof. 
About  two  years  after  Paul's  birth  his  father  received  a 
clericcd  appointment  at  Joditz,  a  village  not  far  distant, 
which  gave  him  a  small  increase  of  income.  Here  he 
remained  for  ten  years,  during  which  time  Paul  appears 
to  have  enjoyed  a  happy  childhood,  or  one  at  any  rate  to 
which  he  looked  back  with  feelings  of  much  pleasure. 
That  he  made  small  progress  in  book-learning  was  doubt- 
lessly owing  more  to  the  shortcomings  of  the  teachers 
than  of  the  taught,  since  he  showed  much  fondness  for 
books  and  eagerly  read  such  literature  as  fell  into  his  hands 
This  consisted  mainly  of  a  few  theological  books  of  his 
father's — of  which  he  understojd  not  a  word — and  some 
old  newspapers.     For  a  short  time  he  went  to  school,  but 


Xll  BIOGRAPHY. 

his  father  soon  withdrew  him  on  account  of  some  ill-treat- 
ment which  he  had  received  at  the  hands  of  another  boy, 
and  he  and  his  brother  Adam  were  in  future  taught  at 
home.  The  instruction  they  received  seems  to  have 
consisted  entirely  of  learning  by  heart — either  pages  of 
Latin  words  or  grammar,  or  Scripture  texts.  With  so 
little  intellectual  nourishment,  it  is  not  surpriising  that  he 
showed  no  signs  of  remarkable  mental  growth  while  at 
Joditz. 

It  was  in  Paul's  thirteenth  year  that  his  father  received 
what  promised  to  be  a  better  living  in  Schwarzenbach-on- 
the-Saale.  For  the  boy  this  was  a  decided  gain.  Here 
he  had  many  advantages  v/hich  had  before  been  v^  anting, 
not  the  least  of  which  was  access  to  a  more  plentiful 
supply  of  books  in  the  library  of  a  friend,  a  young  man 
named  Vogel.  The  master  too  of  the  school  seems  to 
have  taken  pride  in  his  promising  pupil,  and  under  his 
tuition  Paul  acquired  some  little  knowledge  of  Latin  and 
Greek,  and  even  made  a  beginning  with  Hebrew.  Now 
too  he  first  had  some  leshons  in  music,  for  which  he  bad 
decided  talent,  inherited  from  his  father  who,  Paul  tells 
us,  was  a  composer  of  church  music  and  had  erred  in 
not  devoting  himself  entirely  to  the  Tone  Muse.  A 
young  curate  also  took  an  inteie.^t  in  Paul  and  obtained 
his  father's  permission  to  have  him  for  two  hours  in  the 
afternoon  to  give  him  instruction  in  geography,  philo- 
sophy, and  theology.  For  the  former  of  these  he  appears 
however  to  have  had  little  liking,  and  consequently  to 
have  made  no  progress  therein,  but  in  the  study  of 
v^j  philosophy  and  theology  he  was  as  it  were  in  his  natural 
element.  The  exercises  which  he  did  for  the  curate  were 
his  first  attempts  at  composition.* 

♦  The  reader  is  here  recommended  to  turn  to  the  Autobiography, 
where  he  will  find  a  full  account  of  tlie  firet  fourteen  years  of  Ricliter'a 
life. 


BIOGRAPHY.  xui 


^"  2.    High  School. — Frien-ds. — Fjrst  Literary  Effo:its. 
1779—1781. 

In  the  Easter  of  the  year  1779,  Richter,  being  then 
sixteen  years  of  age,  was  sent  to  the  high  school  at  Hof. 
In  Schwarzenbach  he  had  unconsciously  acquired  know- 
ledge and  developed  a  power  of  thought  which  raised  him 
far  above  his  school-fellows,  above  the  school — certainly 
not  a  very  remarkable  one — and  beyond  his  own  years. 
Werner  the  kind  old  Rector*  of  the  school  and  Volkel  the 
curate,  a  younger  man  of  much  ability,  doubtlessly  con- 
tributed considerably  to  this  precocious  development,  but 
perhaps  he  owed  most  to  Vogel,  the  pastor  of  the 
neighbouring  village  of  Rehau,  a  man  of  wit  and  bene- 
volence, who  took  an  interest  in  the  clever  boy,  and  gave 
him  the  range — though  with  certain  limitations — of  a 
well-storei  library.  The  high  school  at  Hof  offered  scanty 
means  for  intellectual  development.  Neither  the  Rector* 
nor  the  Conrector  evinced  any  particular  talent  for 
teaching,  and  Richter  was  thus  thrown  almost  entirely  on 
himself  and  his  former  studies,  in  following  up  his  predilec- 
tion for  philosophy  ;  the  study  of  history  to  which  he  had 
before  been  indifferent  now  became  thoroughly  distasteful 
through  the  dryness  and  tediousness  of  the  lectures. 

In  addition  to  this  intellectual  want  he  had  also  othei 
trials,  as  the  following  anecdote  will  show,  which  though 
flight  and  iusignifi'-ant  in  themselves  were  bitter  and 
painful  fur  a  hcnsitive  disposition  such  as  his. 

After  the  entrance  examination  Kichter  was  pro- 
nounced fit  for  the  upper  Prima*  but  at  the  request  of 
his  father,  who  feaied  the  envy  of  his  school -fellows, 
he  wa^j  enrolled  among  the  middle  Primaners.     Even  this 

*  For  tlie  explanation  of  thb  and  following  titles  see  Autobiogrupby 
P  *• 


XIV  BIOGRAPHY. 

degree  of  preference  was  unheard  of  and  awakened  the 
feelings,  which  his  father  had  feared,  in  some  of  the  other 
boys,  who  resolved  in  school-boy  fashion  to  have  their 
revenge.  This  they  did  by  idling  him  that  it  was  the 
cubtom  and  duty  of  all  new  members  of  the  Prima  to  kiss 
the  hand  of  the  master  at  the  firist  French  lesson,  and 
Eichter,  in  fulfilment  of  this  supposed  duty,  innocently 
and  respectfully  sought  the  reluctant  hand,  but  his  master, 
who,  being  no  favourite,  supposed  it  to  hxy  some  fresh 
in.^ult,  all  the  more  stinging  as  coming  from  a  new  boy, 
rushed  at  the  innocent  lad  in  a  burst  of  passion  and  then 
left  the  room  with  a  volley  of  oaths,  whilst  the  new 
Primaner  stood  there  outwitted  and  derided  by  the 
companions  in  whom  he  had  hoped  to  find  friends.  One 
only  of  them,  Christian  Otto,  took  no  part  in  the  general 
uproar,  and  sowed  in  that  hour  the  seed  of  a  friendship 
which  lasted  throughout  their  lives. 

An  occurrence  of  a  different  sort  however  soon  raised 
Eichter  again  to  his  right  place  among  his  school-fellows. 
It  was  the  custom  at  the  school  for  the  boys  to  hold 
debates  under  the  presidency  of  the  Eector,  who  decided 
on  the  respective  merits  of  the  two  parties.  When 
Eichter's  turn  came  to  lead  the  opposition,  the  Eector 
had  chosen  a  theological  subject.  Partly  from  natural 
bent  and  partly  from  intercourse  with  his  decidedly 
rationalistic  old  friends  in  Schwarzenbach  and  Eehau, 
Eichter  already  inclined  to  heterodoxy,  and  had  acquired 
through  his  private  reading,  an  amount  of  knowledge 
of  which  no  one,  least  of  all  the  Eector,  had  any  idea 
and  which  in  the  debate — to  him  no  school  exercise, 
but  a  matter  of  feeling — he  used  as  w^eapons  against 
his  opponent  and  against  the  Eector  with  his  sacred 
and  infallible  doctrines. 

His  opponent  with  ordinary  schoolboy  knowledge  was 
Boon  reduced  to  silence,  while  the  Eector  himself  from 


BIOGRAPHY.  XV 

lack  of  means,  strove  equally  vainly  against  tlie  young 
rationalist,  who,  encouraged  by  his  success,  proceeded  more 
and  more  boldly  until  at  last  the  Eector  in  despair  took 
refuge  in  the  authority  of  his  office,  and  commanding 
silence,  left  the  chair  and  the  room  without  the 
usual  concluding  ceremony.  Eichter  was  thus  acknow- 
ledged victorious  by  the  whole  class  and  respected 
accordingly. 

The  first  friendship  which  Eichter  made  was  with  the 
above-mentioned  Christian  Otto,  who  was  the  Fon  of  a 
well-to-do  commercial  man  and  a  youth  whose  thought- 
fulness  and  appreciation  of  right  and  duty  were  supple- 
mented by  cordial  manners  and  an  aflectionate  disposition. 
He  afterwards  became  Eichter's  chief  confidant  in  his 
literary  plans  and  undertakings,  and  his  censor  and 
adviser,  as  may  be  eeen  from  their  correspondence.* 

The  honour  of  being  chosen  to  speak  at  the  yearly 
Actus  or  Speech-day  was  conferred  on  Eichter  in  both  the 
years  that  he  was  at  school.  I'he  speeches  recited  on 
these  days  were  the  original  compositions  of  the  boys 
who  were  also  allowed  to  select  their  own  subjects. 
Those  chosen  by  Eichter,  viz.,  "  The  Value  of  the  early 
Study  of  Philosophy,"  and  "  The  Importance  of  the  Dis- 
covery of  New  Truths  "f  are  characteristic.  The  peculiar 
tendency  of  his  mind, — an  enthusiasm  for  knowledge,  a 
keenness  of  thought  and  tenderness  of  feeling  are  very 
apparent  in  both,  but  in  the  latter  is  especially  seen  a 
maturity  of  mind  in  his  zeal  for  universal  culture  and 
progress  which  even  in  his  sixteenth  year  he  lainly 
distinguished  from  the  superficial  and  transitory  desire 
for  radical  destruction. 

♦  Jean  PauTt  BrieftcechMl  mit  seinem  Freunde  Otto.  Berlin,  1829. 
Otto  outlived  his  friend  some  years,  and  is  the  editor  of  one  of  hie 
biographies.    (Wahrheit  aua  Jean  Paul's  Leben.) 

t  The  former  is  printed  in  Jean  Paul's  Sammtliche  Werke,  Ist  ed. 
Tol.  Uiii. ;  the  last  named  appears  to  be  the  earlier  in  date. 


\^ 


V 


XVI  BIOGRAPHY. 

In  addition  to  his  school  classes  and  school  work, 
Richter  employed  himself  in  a  manner  which,  although 
he  was  still  quite  unconscious  of  it  himself,  decidedly 
foreshadowed  his  future  vocation  and  which  laid  the 
foundation  both  of  a  comprehensive  knowledge  and  of  an 
unexampled  wealth  of  thought.  He  made  a  library — a 
double  one  we  may  say — with  his  own  hand.  First  he 
took  copious  extracts  from  all  the  books  that  he  read,  the 
contents  of  which  he  thought  of  any  importance,  and 
entered  them  carefully  in  note  books,  providing  each 
with  two  indexes,  one  of  the  writings  from  which  he  took 
the  extracts,  and  one  of  the  subjects  of  the  extracts.  At 
Schwarzenbach-on-the-Saale,  when  still  a  lad,  he  had 
already  begun  this  work,  and  in  the  year  1778,  he  had 
filled  two  quarto  books  of  above  two  hf  ndred  closely 
written  pages.  At  the  commencement  of  the  year  1779 
he  completed  another  in  Schwarzenbach  and  two  more  in 
Hof ;  in  1780  five  more,  and  so  on,  with  untiring  zeal. 
Throughout  his  life  he  continued  this  method  of  retaining 
in  his  memory  all  that  he  read,  but  in  later  years  he 
did  it  more  briefly.  He  himself  says,  in  one  of  the 
books  of  a  later  period,  "To  have  my  life's  history,  I 
need  only  open  my  extract  books;  with  each  one  is 
connected  a  portion  of  my  life."  The  extracts  treat 
chiefly  of  such  subjects  as  the  Eternity  of  Hell  Punish- 
ment— the  Works  of  .  the  Devil — the  Connection 
Natural  and  Christian  Religions — Love  towards  Enemies 
— the  Atonement — Faith — Original  Sin — and  so  on ;  also 
epigrams  and  poems,  comic  and  sentimental.  In  the 
second  volume  are:  Connexion  of  the  Body  and  Soul — 
the  Diversity  of  the  Senses — What  is  Beauty? — Blind 
religious  Zeal  —  Eating  and  Drinking  —  What  would^ 
Man  be,  if  he  were  not  immortal? — Spinoza's  Divinity,] 
It  wo'dd  require  too  great  a  space  to  give  these  in  de-4 
tail ;  each  book  contained  on  an  average  several  hundred] 


BIOGRAPHY.  XV 11 

snbjects;  it  is  enougli  that  we  compreliend  what  a  mass 
of  knowledge  he  acquired  in  his  earliest  youth,  how  he 
selected  it  in  accordance  with  the  bent  of  his  mind,  and 
arranged  it  for  study  and  future  use.  Not  less  important 
to  him,  and  to  us  more  significant,  was  the  second  part  of 
his  MS.  library — the  records  of  his  own  thoughts  and 
researi  hes.  With  the  same  order  and  neatness  he  com- 
menced these  books  for  "Exercises  in  Thinking,"  in  which 
he  wrote  do\NTi  his  philosophical  speculations  and  religious 
reflections.  These  he  kept  with  the  same  care  as  his 
extracts,  although  he  expressly  denied  that  they  had 
any  value  for  other  people.  The  first  volume  begins  in 
November  1780.  Besides  a  number  of  disconnected  notes 
it  contains  seven  treatises  with  such  titles  as, "  The  Nature 
of  our  Conception  of  God,"  "A  Thing  without  Force  is 
an  Impossibility,"  "  Is  the  World  a  perpetuum  mobile  ? " 
A  second  volume,  with  similar  contents,  was  added  in 
December  of  the  same  year,  and  many  others  followed. 
The  following  extracts  will  serve  as  specimens : 

Fools  and  Wise  Men,  Blockheads  and  Geniuses. 

"  These  appellations  do  not  indicate  the  same  things, 
though  they  are  often  confounded.  Their  difference  is 
easily  detected. 

"  The  Blockhead  is  a  being  to  be  pitied ;  one  whose 
intellect  never  grasps  more  than  a  small  number  of  ideas ; 
and  who,  enshrouded  in  deep  darkness,  is  never  illumined 
by  the  beams  of  truth ;  the  Blockhead  is  the  polypus 
between  man  and  the  animals.  1'he  Fool  is  not  so  at  all. 
Most  are  fools  because  they  know  too  much  or  more  than 
is  good  for  them.  They  know  much,  but  become  fools 
just  because  they  apply  it  all  badly.  The  Blot^khead  is 
bom,  the  Fool  made.  The  Blockhead  creeps  along  like 
the  snail  for  slowness,  for  he  is  far  behind  on  the  road  of 
tmth   and  incapable  of  advancing.    He  is  on  the  right 

I.  h 


XMll  BIOGRAPHY. 

road  perhaps,  but  is  it  to  be  wocdered  at,  that  he  who 
has  gone  only  a  few  steps  from  the  gate  has  not  yet  lost 
his  way?  I'he  Fool  is  on  in  front,  but  he  has  left  the 
right  road  and  wanders  without  guidance.  Ihe  Block- 
head is  not  recognised  at  once,  for  in  common  with  the 
Wise  Man,  he  says  little  and  does  not  betray  himself. 
Often,  too,  he  adopts  the  mask  of  the  Wise  Man,  as  the 
donkey  as>unies  the  lion's  skin — the  dress  is  not  becoming 
to  either,  but  only  the  sharpnighted  can  unmask  them. 
The  Fool,  on  the  contrary,  is  apparent  at  once ;  for  he 
bears  a  mark  of  his  own,  which  distinguishes  liim  from 
others,  as  the  uniform  does  the  soldier.  In  fact  he  is  not 
as  others  are.  The  Fool  says  all  that  he  thinks — and  this 
betrays  him  at  once.  We  should  find  more  Blockheads  in 
the  world  if  more  people  were  open  enough  to  give 
utterance  to  their  thoughts.  The  Blockhead  is  a  Block- 
head for  this  reason,  that  he  is  not  one  of  the  animals ; 
among  them  be  would  pass  for  a  Genius.  The  Fool  is  a 
Fool  for  this  reason,  that  he  does  not  live  in  a  particular 
"^"^orld  which  is  not  the  real  one,  namely,  in  that  or  e 
which  exists  in  his  own  head,  where  he  would  be  con- 
sidered clever.  The  Blockhead  cannot  be  cured,  because 
he  is  born  one — he  is  a  feeble  creature,  whose  powers 
cannot  be  increased.  Ihe  Fool  can  be  rendered  better 
just  because  he  is  able  to  become  worse.  He  is  a  strong 
man,  whose  powers  are  badly  employed;  nothing  is 
necessary  but  to  turn  them  in  another  direction.  Mad- 
ness is  the  highest  degree  of  foolishness — and  this  is  cured 
now-a-days.  In  sleep  we  are  all  Fools,  and  this  because 
we  have  lost  our  guides,  the  senses.  The  Blockhead  is 
not  one  when  in  sleep — he  is  then  an  embryo— he  does  not 
think  at  all.  The  fault  in  the  Blockhead  is  that  he  has 
no  imagination  ;  the  Fool,  on  the  contrary,  is  one  because 
he  has  too  much  imagination.  Thus  is  the  poet  in  danger 
of  becoming  a  Fool.     Hence  comes  the  much  praised  furoi 


BIOGRAPHY.  XIX 

poeticus.  The  Blockhead  has  his  counterpart  among  the 
animals  ;  not  so  the  Fool.  This  indicates  that  the  latter 
is  more  nearly  allied  to  man  than  the  former.  All  men 
are  subject  at  tiiues  to  foolishness  and  the  greatest 
oftenest  of  any ;  but  only  a  small  number  are  stupid. 
One  is  stupid  continually,  but  one  is  a  fool  for  a  short 
time  only.  The  heart  of  the  Blockhead  is  little  capable 
of  noble  emotions ;  that  of  the  Fool  is  open  to  all,  pro- 
vided only  that  they  do  not  touch  the  whims  which 
render  him  a  fool.  Fools  are  confined  or  put  in  fetters ; 
but  Blockheads  are  allowed  full  liberty.  They  often  till 
the  lecturer's  chair,  or  the  pulpit — they  sit  on  thrones. 
Often  nothing  more  is  necessary  in  order  to  obtain  an 
office  than  to  be  a  Blockhead ;  for  he  who  has  to  bestow  it 
has  sympathy  for  those  who  resemble  himself— he  appre- 
ciates in  others  that  which  he  values  in  himself.  Fools 
and  Blockheads  are  alike  only  in  this,  that  neither  of 
them  thinks  he  is  what  he  is." 

From  the  "  Inquiry  into  the  various  Religions  of  the 
World,"  we  will  give  only  the  conclusion.  "  And  what 
then  is  the  result  of  all  ?  This !  that  all  religions  are 
good — and  for  the  places  where  they  are — the  best.  They 
are  different  means  to  the  same  end.  Any  religion  to 
which  I  cleave  with  conviction  is  the  best  for  me.  For 
another  it  is  not  so,  because  he  is  not  convinced  by  it. 
Christianity  is  so  little  spread  through  the  world  because 
excellence  is  more  rare  than  mediocrity.  Kidicule  then 
no  religion  which  thou  pronouncest  false— thou  wilt 
ridicule  Him  who  suffered  that  religion  to  arise.  Let 
"OS  be  tolerant  towards  those  whom  we  may  surpass  in 
intellect,  but  whose  hearts  are  perhaps  better,  kinder,  and 
more  loving  than  ours.  Let  us  not  as  formerly,  murder 
our  brethren  in  order  to  please  a  Preserver  of  Life — not 
by  stakes  and  inquisitions  propagate  a  religion  which  ia 

h  2 


XX  BIOGRAPHY. 

ruled  by  Love.  How  glorious  are  these  prospects !  All 
are  our  brethren — all  our  relations  in  faith — all  are  called 
to  one  Heaven — all  loved  by  one  Father ! " 

The  following  "  Observations  "  from  the  first  two  books 
may  be  added  to  the  foregoing  "  Inquiries." 

"  Many  a  one  thinks  himself  pious  when  he  calls  the 
world  a  '  vale  of  misery.'  But  I  think  he  would  be 
more  so  if  he  called  it  a  '  valley  of  joy.'  God  will  be 
better  pleased  with  him  who  finds  everything  good  in 
the  world,  than  with  him  who  is  content  with  nothing. 
With  so  many  thousand  joys  in  the  world — is  it  not  black 
ingratitude  to  call  it  a  place  of  sorrow  and  affliction? 
I  could  the  sooner  forgive  such  an  expression  in  a  child 
of  misfortune  who  in  the  gloomy  hours  of  melancholy 
relieves  his  oppressed  heart  in  lamentations,  but  in  a 
fat-bellied  abbot  who  spends  his  days  luxuriously  on  the 
soft  sofa,  who  knows  no  other  burden  than  that  of  having 
a  restless  soul  which  interrupts  the  sweetness  of  his  rest 
by  feelings  of  ennui^ — to  hear  such  an  expression  from 
him  is  insufferable,  it  is  mocking  the  Creator,  and  re- 
paying His  kindness  with  ingratitude. 

"  Our  Creator  has  employed  every  means  to  awaken  and 
to  nourish  in  us  a  love  towards  one  another — the  love 
which  makes  life  so  sweet  to  us,  which  enables  us  to  bear 
each  suffering  with  double  strength.  A  flame  burns 
unceasingly  in  our  bosom,  kindling  joy  in  us  when  we  see 
others  joyous  and  filling  our  hearts  with  sadness  when 
others  weep — we  call  it  love  of  mankind.  I  see  one 
means  thereto  in  that  attraction  in  faces  which  we  call 
*  beauty.'  This  external  charm  which  so  attracts  our 
souls,  this  power  which  melts  our  hearts  in  melancholy 
and  draws  soft  tears  from  our  eyes,  this  divinity  in  the 
human  face  knits  more  firmly  and  closely  the  bond  which 
an  ever  active  impulse  ties.  0,  rather  would  I  fall  down 
before  the  Maker  of  all  that  is  beautiful  and  perfect  and 


BIOGRAPHY.  XXI 

weep  before  Him,  when  I  see  a  t<)ucliing  beanty,  than 
cherish  a  voluptuous  thought." 

What  must  strike  us  particularly  in  these  earliest 
utterances  of  Jean  Paul,  is  that  no  trace  of  that  quality 
which  was  afterwards  so  prominent  in  his  writings, 
namely  satiric  humour,  is  yet  to  be  found  in  them. 
Religious  reflections,  philosophical  researches,  observations 
of  nature  and  human  life,  form  the  chief  substance  of  his 
thoughts  and  productions,  the  kejTiote  of  which  is  love 
and  joy.  That  tenderness  of  feeling  peculiar  in  so  high 
a  degree  to  our  author  sought  expression  in  a  story  written 
at  this  time  which,  with  an  allusion  easily  seen,  he 
named  *'  Abelard  and  Heloise."  This  novel,  in  the  form 
of  a  series  of  letters,  was  found  among  his  papers  after  his 
death,  neatly  written  with  his  own  hand  and  dated 
January  1781.  The  tone  of  the  book  is  sufficiently 
shown  by  the  motto  prefixed  to  it :  *'  The  sensitive  man 
is  too  good  for  this  earth,  on  which  are  vain  scofifers; 
— only  in  j^onder  world  where  are  sympathising  angels 
does  he  find  the  reward  for  his  tears."  The  following 
note  written  on  the  reverse  side  of  the  title-page  will  tell 
us  in  what  estimation  he  himself  held  the  book  a  few 
months  after  it  was  written,  and  show  also  that  he  had 
already  commenced  the  healthful  practice  of  selforiticism. 

"  Faults  :  This  story  is  wholly  without  plan.  The  plot 
is  a  complete  failure ;  it  is  commonplace  and  uninteresting. 
The  characters  are  not  so  much  badly  described  as  wholly 
nndescribed.  Of  Abelard  and  Heloise  one  sees  nothing  but 
the  hearts,  none  of  their  thoughts ;  none  of  their  charac- 
teristics are  painted  ;  their  love  itself  is  not  even  correctly 
represented;  besides  this,  the  whole  is  exaggerated;  in 
many  passages  one  feels  nothing  just  because  it  is  meant 
to  be  exceedingly  touching.  It  is  also  contrary  to  pro- 
bability, it  is  i'ery  shallow,  etc.,  etc.  The  language  is  not 
Gocthesian,  but  a  bad  imitation  of  it. 


XXU  BIOGRAPHY. 

*'  Beauties  :  The  language  of  the  feelings  is  not  every- 
where misrepresented,  the  descriptions  of  natural  scenes 
are  not  a  complete  failure.  The  German  is  not  quite 
pitiable,  it  is  not  at  any  rate  like  that,  which  the  Force- 
Geniuses  (Kraft-Genies)  of  the  present  time  write.  There 
are  also  a  few  isolated  good  remarks  to  be  found,  and  I 
should  have  made  more,  if  I  had  striven  less  after  senti- 
ment. Finally  this  booklet  has  for  me  the  beauty,  that 
it  represents  a  certain  condition  of  my  heart  at  a  par- 
ticular time,  which  I  now  consider  as  folly,  because  I 
have  not  the  happiness  to  bo  the  same  fool  still." 

In  spite  of  these  indications  of  diligence  on  Richter's 
2^art,  his  external  life  at  this  time  was  far  from  favourable 
to  the  pursuit  of  his  studies.  Shortly  after  their  arrival 
in  Hof  in  1779,  he  had  lost  his  father,  who  left  their 
mother  with  her  five  children  entirely  destitute.  Their 
grandparents  with  whom  Paul  was  living,  and  on  whose 
support  his  mother  was  entirely  dependent,  died  soon 
afterwards  within  a  short  time  of  one  another.  About 
the  heritage,  itself  insignificant,  there  arose  a  lawsuit 
among  the  relations,  who  thought  themselves  badly 
treated,  and  almost  the  whole  of  it  was  swallowed  up. 
Eichter  then  began  first  to  feel  the  pressure  of  poveity 
and  want,  and  it  was  only  by  his  unceasing  mental 
activity  and  the  cheerfulness  with  which  he  resigned 
himself  to  circumstances  that  he  preserved  himself  free 
from  their  fatal  efiects. 

§.  III.    University  Life. — "  Greenland  Lawsuits." 
1781—1784. 

In  the  spring  of  the  year  1781,  Eichter  left  the  high 
school  and  went  to  Baireuth  for  his  matriculation 
examination.  A  humorous  description  of  his  ride  thither 
is  given  in  the  "  Flegeljahre "  (Wildoats),  After  passing 
his  examination  successfully,  he  started  on  the  11th  May, 


BIOGRAPHY.  XXlll 

1781,  on  liis  journey  to  the  University  of  Leipzig. 
Here  turning  to  his  father's  profession,  more  because 
he  was  the  eldest  son  of  a  clerg^^man,  than  fiom  his 
oxNTi  choice,  Eichter  at  first  attended  the  theological 
lectures  at  Leipzig,  but  also  at  the  same  time  in  pursuance 
of  his  natural  taste  he  attended  those  on  philosophy  and 
mathematics.  The  following  extracts  from  his  letters  at 
this  time  may  help  to  show  us  his  impression  of  Leipzig 
and  universit}^  life. 

''  I  have  arrived  here  safely.  It  is  a  fine  town,  if  a 
town  with  large  houses  and  long  streets  is  called  fine. 
For  my  part  I  think  it  monotonous.  And  the  beautiful 
neighbourhood  too,  which  you  promised  me,  I  do  nA)t 
find  anywhere  round  about  Leipzig.  Everywhere  a  per- 
petual sameness, — no  valleys  and  hills — wanting  in  all 
the  charms  which  have  always  rendered  the  neighbour- 
hood where  yon  still  live  so  plea-ing  to  me.  In  many 
respects  things  here  are  as  you  told  me,  in  others  they 
are  different.  I  get  a  dinner  for  18  pfennigs.*  And 
besides  this,  I  have  got  the  Inscrijpzion\  with  Eector 
Clodius  gratis,  and  the  lectures  too.  I  have  only  to  pay 
It)  thalersj  for  a  nice  room  in  the  Three  Roses  Inn  in 
I'eteistrasse  No.  2,  on  the  second  floor,  but  this  is  under 
the  condition  that  I  turn  out  during  Fair  times.  The 
students  too  are  as  polite  and  polished  as  j'ou  told  mo. 
But  in  the  following  matter  your  prophecy  does  not  seem 
as  if  it  would  be  re-alised.  Private  tutorships  (In/or- 
mazionen)  are  scarce  here  and  the  crowd  of  applicants  is 
innumerable.  In  large  houses  those  students  only  are 
taken  who  have  recommendations.  An  Informazion  is 
thus  not  such  a  common  thing,  and  a  good  one  is  rare.  I 
have  this  myself  from  the  lips  of  several  professors.  All 
have  told  me  that  not  very  consolatory  proverb  of 
Leipzig:    Lipaia  vult  expectari.     And  the   expectari  is  so 

•  About  twopenoc.  f  College  fees.        J  About  2/.  8«. 


V 


XXIV  BIOGRAPHY. 

indefinite  that  when  one  has  been  fifty  years  and  has  not 
got  a  place  after  all,  they  still  continue  to  say,  '  He  has 
only  to  wait,  something  will  be  sure  to  turn  up ! ' 

"  Herr  Kirsch*  of  Hof  travelled  with  us  to  Leipzig.  His 
presence  has  been  of  great  assistance  to  me.  He  has 
recommended  me  most  favourably  to  several  people,  and 
he  has  also  written  me  a  very  good  Testimonium panpertatis. 
I  need  only  to  show  this  in  order  to  get  all  my  lectures 
free." 

Later  he  writes : 

"  My  supposition  about  the  expectari  has  not  been  dis- 
proved so  far,  it  has  rather  been  confirmed.  I  still  have 
no  pupils  here,  no  table  to  dine  at  ;f  no  acquaintance  among 
the  students,  no  anything  at  all.  It  is  by  no  means  easy 
to  get  access  to  the  professors.  Those  who  are  really 
celebrated  and  whose  favour  would  satisfy  me,  are  sur- 
rounded by  the  amount  of  work  and  besieged  by  a  crowd 
of  other  distinguished  persons  and  a  swarm  of  base 
flatterers,  so  that  any  one  who  is  not  recommended  by 
his  coat  or  his  rank  can  only  with  difficulty  become 
acquainted  with  them.  If  anyone  should  want  to  speak 
with  a  professor  without  having  a  special  request  to 
make,  he  would  lay  himself  open  to  the  suspicion  of 
vanity.  When  I  consider  the  crowd  of  students  who 
deceive  the  professors  and  embitter  them  against  the 
better  ones,  then  I  am  able  to  explain  to  myself  the  wdiole 
phenomenon.  But  I  do  not  on  this  account  give  up  hope. 
I  shall  overcome  all  these  difficulties — I  can  already  do  so 
partly,  but  after  all,  I  do  not  need  it.  I  come  now  to  the 
mystery,  the  explanation  of  which  you  have  so  eagerly 
awaited,  and  which  I  only  vaguely  stated  to  my  mother. 

*  The  Kector  of  liis  school. 

*  Einen  Tisch  hahen  ,  lit.  to  have  a  table,  i.e.  to  have  a  free  dinner. 
It  is  customary  for  families  to  invite  poor  students  with  whom  they 
are  acquainted,  to  dine  with  them  on  a  fixed  day  in  each  week  during 
thtir  res  deu3e  at  the  University. 


BIOGRAPHY.  XXV 

But  it  is  just  as  little  solved  now  as  then,  only  this  I  can 
tell  you,  that  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  a  Stipendium,  or 
a  Tisch,  an  Informazion  or  anything  else  of  the  kind.  It 
concerns  something  of  which  you  have  no  suspicion,  of 
which  I  cannot  tell  you  until  the  result  answers  my 
expectation.     So  much  for  that. 

"  Fashion  is  here  the  tyrant  bef<jre  whom  everybody 
bows,  though  it  is  never  consistent  with  itself.  Dandies 
swarm  in  the  streets  :  in  fine  weather  they  flit  about  like  y 
butterflies.  One  is  as  bad  as  the  other :  they  are  like  dolla 
in  the  Marionette  show,  and  not  one  has  the  courage  to 
be  himself.  The  puppy  flits  from  lady  to  lady,  from 
party  to  party,  carries  off  a  few  follies  everywhere  with 
him,  laughs  and  cries  as  the  others  desire,  and  feeds  one 
party  with  the  indigestible  scraps  which  he  has  picked  up 
at  another ;  and  employs  his  body  in  eating,  and  his  soul 
in  doing  nothing  until  he  falls  asleep.  He  who  is  not  ^ 
compelled  by  poverty  to  be  wise,  at  Leipzig  becomes  the 
fool  whom  I  have  hero  described.  Most  of  the  rich 
students  are  like  this. 

"  The  information  which  you  ask  for,  about  the  religious 
opinions  in  Leipzig,  may  be  given  in  a  few  words.  Almosfc 
all  students  lean  to  the  side  of  heterodoxy.  If  there  are 
not  so  many  among  them  who  are  actually  unorthodox 
there  are  all  the  more  who  are  indifferent  to  religion, 
who  are  naturalists  or  even  atheists.  I'he  reason  of  this 
is  probably  that  it  is  less  trouble  and  requires  less  know- 
ledge to  be  the  latter  than  the  former.  The  greater 
number  are  no  longer  orthodox,  but  only  a  few  are 
Socinians  in  the  real  meaning  of  the  word.  I  myself 
have  heard  a  lecturer  who  was  in  orders,  inveighing 
incessantly  against  the  systematic  mystical  interpretation 
of  the  Bible,  the  allegory-mania,  the  adherence  to  all 
untrue  evidence,  the  want  of  Hebrew  knowledge  in  the 
interpretation  of  the  New  Testament,  etc.,  etc.    But  in 


XXYl  BIOGRAPHY. 

spite  of  this  he  does  not  dare  freely  to  deny  any  dogma, 
he  can  only  speak  of  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  be- 
lieving it  and  leave  the  decision  of  its  value  to  his  hearers. 
'J'he  chief  cause  which  hinders  freedom  of  thought  in 
Saxony,  is  that  the  great  men  are  still  unenlighteiied. 
An  outspoken  book  is  at  once  confiscated.  I  am  attending 
expository  lectures  on  St.  John  by  Weber;  and  on  the 
Acts  by  Morus ;  on  Logic  and  Metaphysics  by  Platner ; 
on  Esthetics  by  the  same ;  on  Moral  Philosophy  by 
AVieland  ;  on  Geometry  and  Trigrmometry  by  Gehler  ;  on 
Philo's  Legatio  ad  imperatorem  Caium  by  Morus;  and  on 
English  by  M.  Rogler.  I  have  made  it  a  rule  in  my 
studies  only  to  follow  those  which  I  find  most  agreeable 
and  for  which  I  am  the  least  unfitted,  and  which  I  already 
find  useful  or  think  will  be  so..  I  have  often  been  led 
into  error  through  following  this  rule  but  have  never 
repented  of  my  mistakest  Studying  that  for  which  one 
has  no  love  is  a  struggle  against  weariness,  tedium  and 
disgust  to  attain  a  good  which  one  does  not  desire,  and 
this  implies  wasting  one's  powers,  which  feel  themselves 
to  be  created  for  another  end,  on  a  subject  with  which 
one  makes  no  progress  and  withdrawing  them  from  that 
in  which  one  would  have  been  successful.  'But  it  is 
just  by  this  that  you  earn  your  bread'  is  the  pitiable 
objecti  -n  raised  in  reply.  I  know  nothing  in  the  world 
by  which  one  could  not  earn  one's  bread.  I  will  pass  over 
the  fact  that  he  who  makes  the  mere  gaining  of  necessities 
the  sole  aim  of  his  studies — by  one  more  by  another  less — 
never  makes  much  progress.  This  being  admitted,  I  do 
not  know  if  I  would  earn  my  bread  by  that,  for  which 
I  feel  I  have  no  capacity,  in  which  I  experience  no 
pleasure  and  in  which,  consequently,  I  cannot  possibly 
make  progress,  or  by  that,  in  which  my  pleasure  spurs 
me  on  and  my  powers  help  me  forward.  One  must  live 
entirely  for  cne  branch  of  knowledge,   sacrificing  every 


BIOGRAPHY.  XXVI 1 

power,  every  pleasure,  every  moment  to  it  and  occupying 
oneself  with  the  others  only  in  so  far  as  they  act  as  a 
foil  to  this  one.  And  if  by  the  strange  complication  of 
external  circumstances  I  lose  the  paltry  gain  which  is  the 
object  with  all  small  intellects,  this  is  certainly  made  good 
to  me  tenfold,  when  I  enjoy  that  deep  delight  in  following 
my  object,  wldch  springs  from  the  pursuit  of  truth ;  when 
I  feel  the  charm  which  the  expression  of  each  of  my 
powers  has  for  me  and  when  perhaps  I  enjoy  the  honour 
also,  which  sooner  or  later  may  fall  to  their  lot.  This  is 
my  defence.  Hitherto  I  have  read  only  philosophical 
works,  now  I  prefer  only  witty  and  eloquent  writings, 
rich  in  metaphor.  I  used  not  to  study  French,  now  I 
read  French  books  in  preference  to  German.  The  wit 
of  a  Voltaire,  the  eloquence  of  a  Rousseau,  the  splendid 
style  of  a  Helvetius,  the  acute  remarks  of  a  Toussaint — 
all  these  urge  me  to  the  study  of  the  French  language. 
I  do  not  consider  that  I  am  learning  anything,  but  only 
that  I  am  amusing  myself;  yet  with  the  impression  of 
the  beautiful  passages  or  the  witty  thoughts,  there  remains 
behind  also  the  manner  in  which  they  were  expressed. 
I  am  reading  Pope  and  am  delighted  with  him,  as  also  with 
Young.  He  must  undoubtedly  be  still  grander  in  the 
•riginal.  I  am  now  learning  English,  primarily  in  order  to 
read  the  excellent  weekly  paper,  the  "  Spectator  "  of  which 
our  translation  is  miserable.  The  eloquence  of  Rousseau 
delights  me,  I  find  it  again  in  Cicero  and  Seneca ;  these 
two  I  like  above  all  others,  and  I  would  not  give  up  their 
writings  for  the  best  of  German  books.  Pope's  satires 
carry  me  away ;  I  found  him,  like  Horace,  more  beautiful 
in  the  original.  His  criticism  of  reason  is  a  masterpiece, 
as  is  Horace's  "  De  Arte  poetica."  I  now  like  the  Latin 
authors  and  have  dropped  that  foolish  prejudice  with 
which  on  very  slight  grounds  I  was  infected  by  the  bad 
iustruction  of  Latin  schoolmasters." 


XXVlll  BIOGRAPHY. 

Partly  througli  external  circumstances  and  partly 
through  the  growth  of  his  powers,  Richter  was  soon 
guided  to  the  choice  of  his  calling.  In  addition  to  his 
regular  university  studies  he  continued  the  self-imposed 
task  which  he  had  begun  at  Hof.  Eleven  large  quarto 
volumes  of  Extracts  from  the  most  recent  works,  went 
with  him  to  Leipzig.  The  way  he  continued  these 
private  studies,  strengthening  thereby  the  foundation  and 
framework  of  his  whole  literary  power,  not  only  indicates 
a  though tfulness  almost  unexampled  in  one  so  young, 
but  also  evinces  a  physical  energy  which  it  is  almost  in- 
comprehensible that  his  body  could  endure,  even  if  his 
mind  could  sustain  it.  Besides  diligently  attending  his 
lectures,  to  which  he  added  private  lessons  in  English, 
and  continuing  his  daily  exercises  in  writing,  which 
filled  numerous  volumes,  and  carrying  on  an  animated 
correspondence  for  which  he  had  special  books,  writing  a 
duplicate  copy  of  every  letter,  he  still  found  time  enough 
not  only  for  the  most  extensive  reading,  but  also  for  the 
continuance  of  his  ample  extract  books.  He  even  com- 
menced various  new  ones,  "  Extraits  de  Uvres  frangais^'* 
then  a  succession  of  excerpts,  "  From  recent  works  relating 
to  Natural  Philosophy  and  History,"  and  others  for 
"  Theology,"  also  a  book  for  "  Witty  Ideas,  Eemarks,  etc., 
from  Ancient  and  Modern  Authors;"  and  all  these  he 
wrote  with  his  own  hand  with  the  greatest  exactness  and 
neatness.  At  the  same  time  too,  he  began  a  dictionary  of 
Varieties  and  Liberties  of  expression  in  which,  under  the 
several  words  and  expressions,  he  collected  and  compared 
as  many  others  as  possible  with  similar  meanings. 

From  the  first-mentioned  extracts,  we  see  that  he  read 
the  writings  of  Lessing  with  special  zest,  and  among 
English  authors  those  of  Pope,  among  the  French,  those 
of  Rousseau,  Helvetius,  Voltaire.  Of  the  poets,  he 
admired  Shakspeare  most,  then  Wieland,  Hippel,  Young, 


BIOGRAPHY.  XXIX 

md  Swift.  He  was  not  however  contented  witli  reading 
and  copying,  but  soon  proceeded  to  original  compositions. 
Among  these  was  (in  1781)  "The  Praise  of  Stupidity." 
In  this  piece  (imprinted)  Stupidity  is  introduced  speaking; 
extols  itself  as  being  the  foster-nurse  of  body  and  soul, 
the  benefactress  of  women,  dandies,  potentates,  courtiers, 
and  noblemen,  of  theologians,  philosophers,  poets,  etc., 
and  concludes  with  an  exhortation  for  the  enlargement  of 
her  empire.  The  train  of  thought  is  firmer,  and  the  ex- 
pression more  decided  than  hitherto,  and  the  satire  of  the 
"  Greenland  Lawsuits  "  can  already  be  traced. 

At  the  same  period  or  shortly  afterwards,  he  wrote  a 
considerable  number  of  treatises,  some  shorter,  some 
longer,  mostly  of  a  satirical  nature,  though  some  of  them 
are  also  philosophical.  Several  are  to  be  found  in  his 
literary  remains.*  Among  others  are  "Atheism  and 
Fanaticisms  Compared;"  "Stray  Thoughts  on  Great 
Men ; "  "  Full  Information  about  the  Bad,  Foolish,  Un- 
true, and  Superfluous  Passages  which  I  have  struck  out 
in  my  still  unprinted  satiric  Organon  out  of  respect  to 
good  taste  and  the  public."  "  The  Difierent  Points  of 
View  from  which  the  Devil,  Death  and  the  Painter  view 
Life." 

With  reference  to  the  "  Praise  of  Stupidity,"  he  thus 
writes  to  Vogel : 

"You  probably  know  tbat  I  am  poor;  but  this  you 
probably  do  not  know,  that  my  poverty  is  not  alleviated 
by  anyone.  One  must  first  by  means  of  money  give  one's 
<  at  ion  to  understand  that  one  is  in  want  of  it,  that  is, 
one  must  not  be  poor  if  one  wishes  to  become  rich.  This 
does  not  suit  my  case,  and  no  dispenser  of  benefits 
considers  me  needy  enough  for  him  to  '.^vo  me  the 
charities  of  others  because  I  cannot  give  him  ^  f  my  own. 
And  God  has  also  denied  mo  four  feet  whereon  ic  crawl 

•  Jean  TauVa  Sammttiche  Werke,  Ist  ed.  vob.  Ixii.-lxv. 


XXX  BIOGRAPHY. 

and  gain  the  gracious  look  of  a  patron  and  a  few  crnmbB 
from  his  abundance.  I  can  be  neither  a  false  flatterer 
nor  a  fool  of  fashion,  nor  can  I  win  my  friends  by  the 
flexibility  of  my  tongue  or  of  my  spine.  Add  to  this  that 
most  of  the  professors  have  neither  time  nor  oppor- 
tunity, neither  will  nor  means  to  help  one ;  that  access 
to  them  is  rendered  impossible  through  the  crowd  of 
flatterers  and  impostors  to  all  those  who  are  neither  the 
one  nor  the  other  /that  it  would  betray  pride  if  one  were 
J  to  catch  at  opportunities  of  showing  them  one's  best  side. 
Put  all  this  together,  and  you  will  know  my  position. 
But  you  do  not  yet  know  how  I  am  going  to  better  it.  It 
occurred  to  me  one  day,  '  I  will  write  books  in  order  to 
be  able  to  buy  books.  I  will  teach  the  public  (permit 
this  expression  for  the  sake  of  the  antithesis)  that  I  may 
myself  be  able  to  learn.  I  will  make  the  end  the  means,  and 
harness  the  horses  behind  the  cart  to  get  out  of  this  horrid 
pass.  I  then  made  an  alteration  in  the  nature  of  my 
studies ;  I  read  good  authors — Seneca,  Ovid,  Pope,  Swift, 
Young,  Voltaire,  Eousseau,  Boileau,  and  I  know  not  whom 
else.  Erasmus'  Encomium  Moriae  suggested  to  me  the 
idea  of  praising  stupidity.  I  began,  I  improved,  I  found 
difficulties  where  I  did  not  expect,  and  found  none  where 
I  awaited  them,  and  I  finished  on  the  day  on  which  I 
received  your  valuable  letter.  You  will  think  '  Strange ' 
if  you  do  not  think  '  Foolish.' " 

"  The  Praise  of  Stupidity,"  as  already  mentioned,  did  not 
reach  its  goal,  the  press.  But  Eichter  did  not  suff'er  him- 
self to  be  discouraged  by  this,  and  soon  produced  the 
"  Greenland  Lawsuits,"  which  was  published  anonymously 
at  Berlin  in  1783. 

It  contained  satires  on  Authors,  Theologians,  on  the 
Pride  of  Birth,  on  Women  and  Dandies,  etc.,  which  with- 
out doubt  he  adorned  with  an  abundance  of  wit  and 
metaphor,  but  to  which  with  his  very  limited  knowledge 


BIOGRAPHY.  XXXI 

of  tho  world,  drawn  mostly  from  books,  lie  could  supply 
only  an  incomplete  foundation  of  reality.  The  bitterness 
of  tone  in  which  the  book  is  written  is  very  striking. 
According  to  his  own  confession  not  one  line  of  love  is  to 
be  found  in  the  whole  of  the  two  volumes. 

But  what  concerns  us  most  in  it  is  the  free  and  liberal 
spirit  displayed  throughout.  The  author  places  himself 
with  decision  on  the  liberal  side,  and  appears  as  the 
declared  adversary  of  blind  faith  in  theological  matters. 
of  the  prerogative  of  birth,  the  surveillance  of  the  press, 
and  the  many  evils  arising  therefrom.  That  in  personal 
matters  too  he  was  able  to  have  and  maintain  his  own 
opinions,  is  shown  by  the  pigtail  episode,  which  in  a 
few  words  is  as  follows : 

For  reasons  of  his  own  Richter  chose  to  dispense  with 
the  discomfort  and  expense  of  collar  and  cravat,  as  also  of 
the  queue  which  according  to  the  fashion  of  that  time  was 
indispensable.  Society  considered  the  matter  of  so  much 
importance  that  it  appears  to  have  allowed  him  little 
peace  at  Leipzig  or  among  his  friends  at  Hof.  So  irate 
was  a  certain  Magister  at  Leipzig,  a  fellow  lodger  in  the 
house  with  Richter,  at  having  to  walk  in  the  same  garden 
with  the  queueless  student,  that  he  prevailed  on  the  land- 
lord to  relieve  him  of  the  nuisance.  Jn  spite  of  re- 
monstrance from  friends  and  enemies  Richter  held  firm 
to  his  fancy  for  seven  years.  "I  hold,"  said  he,  "the 
constant  regard  that  we  pay  in  all  actions  to  the  judg- 
ments of  others  as  the  poison  of  our  peace,  our  reason  and 
our  virtue.  At  this  slave-chain  I  have  long  filed,  but  I 
scarcely  hope  ever  to  break  it."  The  following  circular 
addressed  to  his  friends  and  the  public  was  a  fitting  end 
of  this  characteristic  episode  : 

"The  Undersigned  begs  to  announce  publicly  that, 
whereas  short  hair  has  as  many  enemies  as  red,  whereas 
•aid  enemies  are  at  the  same  time  enemies  of  the  person 


XXXll  BIOGEAPHT. 

on  whom  the  hair  grows ;  and  further,  whereas  such  a 
fashion  is  in  no  respect  Christian,  for  were  it  so  Christian 
people  would  adopt  it,  and  whereas  moreover  the  Tinder- 
signed  has  suffered  as  much  injury  from  his  hair  as 
Absolom  from  his,  though  from  opposite  reasons ;  and 
whereas  he  has  been  privately  informed  that  people  have 
endeavoured  to  bring  him  to  his  grave,  because  there  the 
hair  would  grow  without  scissors,  he  here  makes  known 
that  he  will  not  willingly  wait  so  long.  It  is  hereby 
announced  therefore  to  a  gracious  and  highborn  public, 
that  the  Undersigned  purposes  on  Sunday  next  to  appear 
in  several  of  the  important  streets  of  Hof,  with  a  short 
pigtail  of  false  hair,  and  with  this  pigtail,  as  with  a 
magnet  and  cord  of  love  and  magic  wand,  to  obtain  by 
force  the  love  of  every  one  let  his  name  be  what  it  will. 

"J.  P.  F.  E." 

But  to  return  to  Leipzig.  Though  the  "  Greenland 
Lawsuits"  had  found  a  publisher,  it  did  not  meet  with  a 
warm  reception  from  the  public;  and  his  expectations 
raised  so  high  had  now  gradually  to  lower  their  pitch 
until,  little  by  little,  they  completely  died  away. 
We  find  him  however  busy  with  a  new  book,  and 
that  again  a  satirical  one,  the  "  Selections  from  the 
Devil's  Papers,"  but  his  life  now  at  Leipzig  was  fast 
becoming  unendurable.  Even  the  hope  of  becoming 
known  by  his  book  and  of  forming  connexions  with  men 
of  name  and  note  had  deceived  him.  Direct  ofiers  to 
book>ellers,  attempts  at  mediation  through  others  had 
all  miscarried  entirely.  For  a  long  time  he  had  not 
received  anything  from  home  and  liad  even  grieved 
his  good  mother,  who  always  hoped  that  he  would  go 
into  the  Church,  in  being  unable  to  do  anything  to  help 
her ;  assistance  from  his  friends  could  not  be  asked  to  an 
unlimited  extent,  and  he  was  ngw  reduced  to  the  choice 


BIOGRAPHY.  XXXIU 

tetween  debts  and  hunger.  One  evening,  accompanied  by 
a  friend,  he  went  at  dusk  to  the  town-gate  to  await  tho 
stage-coach  which  took  him  back  to  Hof,  and  thus  in 
November  1784  brought  his  university  career  to  an  end. 

"  A  gladdening  and  enchanting  time  was  that  of  my 
youth  and  one  to  which  I  ever  look  back  with  yearning, 
though  not  the  external  life,  the  barrenest  that  a  youth 
ever  endured,  but  the  internal  which  bore  a  complete 
spring-time  with  blossoms  and  flowers  under  the  deep 
snow  of  the  external." 


§   IV.     TUTORSHIP. — "  THE  INVISIBLE  LODGE."    1784 — 1792. 

Poverty  had  driven  Eichter  from  Leipzig  and  poverty 
awaited  him  in  Hof.  There,  in  a  little  room  with  his 
mother  and  younger  brothers,  he  continued  his  work  amid 
a  variety  of  annoyances  and  privations.  But  those  things 
which  would  have  reduced  another  to  despair  —  the 
washing  and  scouring,  the  cooking,  the  ironing,  and  the 
continual  buzzing  of  the  spinning-wheel,  by  the  aid  of 
which  his  mother  gained  their  scanty  livelihood — to  him 
these  all  became  materials  for  poetry  and  study,  with 
which  he  afterwards  characterised  the  "  Good  Lenette  ;'^ 
and  the  privations  through  which  they  passed,  whether 
serious  or  comic,  he  hoarded  up  for  "Siebenkas,"  his 
Advocate  of  the  Poor.  Like  him,  Richter  was  employed 
while  under  the  pressure  of  wants  from  all  sides  in 
elaborating  his  "  Devil's  Papers."  With  this  work  when 
complete  he  applied  to  several  publishers,  but  in  vain  ; 
and  after  numerous  other  equally  fruitless  efforts  to  obtain 
literary  work  of  any  kind,  he  was  at  length  glad  to 
accept  the  first  offer  which  promised  him  freedom  from 
absolute  want.  This  came  from  the  father  of  one  of  his 
friends  named  von  Oertel,  who  asked  him  to  come  to  Topen, 
and  undertake  the  instruction  of  his  youngest  son. 
L  e 


XXXIV  BIOGRAPHY. 

With  tlie  new  year  of  1787,  Eichter  entered  on  his 
office  with  hopes  of  better  times  than  he  had  hitherto 
enjoyed.  But  though  he  may  well  have  breathed  freely 
on  quitting  Hof,  it  was  no  paradise  to  which  he  came. 
Herr  von  Oertel  was  far  from  being  a  genial  man,  nor 
did  Eichter  ever  succeed  in  gaining  the  confidence  or 
affection  of  his  pupil.  He  felt  too  the  want  of  his  Hof 
friends,  since  there  was  hardly  anyone  at  Topen  with 
whom  he  could  associate ;  and  he  missed  the  library  of 
his  old  friend  Vogel.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  kindness 
of  the  Frau  von  Oertel,  which  he  always  remembered 
with  gratitude,  his  new  life  would  hardly  have  been  more 
endurable  than  the  old. 

In  May  of  this  year,  Eichter  at  length  succeeded  in 
getting  a  publisher  for  the  "Devil's  Papers,"  but  the 
honorarium  which  he  received  was  a  mere  nothing,  and 
the  book  seems  to  have  been  carelessly  and  badly  printed 
and  remained  unnoticed. 

After  the  lapse  of  two  years  his  engagement  at  Topen 
came  to  an  end,  in  what  seems  to  have  been  not  quite  a 
friendly  manner,  and  he  returned  to  his  mother  at  Hof  in 
V  the  summer  of  1789.  Necessity,  however,  forced  him  again 
to  accept  the  office  of  tutor.  Seven  childen  of  both  sexes 
and  diverse  ages  and  abilities  were  intrusted  to  his  care, 
and  we  now  see  the  author  of  the  "  Invisible  Lodge  "  as 
the  teacher  of  the  multiplication  table  and  the  rudiments 
of  grammar.  At  the  same  time,  however,  we  may  see 
him  sketching  the  outline  of  his  "Levana,"  while  bringing 
these  young  plants  to  a  fruitful  maturity. 

His  energy  and  activity  at  this  time  are  truly  astonish- 
ing. Besides  instructing  these  seven  children  in  ele- 
mentary knowledge  of  all  kinds,  and  superintending  their 
work  out  of  school  hours  which  at  times  was  no  easy 
task — one  of  the  boys  once  did  a  voluntary  composition 
of  135  pages — he  still  found   time  and  strength  for  his 


BIOGRAPHY.  XXXV 

own  development.  He  continued  reading  the  most  im- 
portant and,  as  far  as  possible,  the  most  recent  works  of 
all  kinds,  and,  in  accordance  with  his  usual  custom,  made 
copious  extracts  from  them  in  his  note-books.  Of  these 
note  books,  to  which  there  seems  to  be  no  end,  he  now 
began  several  fresh  ones,  on  all  kinds  of  subjects — philo- 
sophical, historical,  sesthetical,  geographical,  satirical, 
humorous,  etc.  By  this  means  he  kept  himself  in 
constant  practice  in  writing;  but  these  books  do  not 
appear  to  have  had  an}-  further  use,  for  he  seldom  or  never 
referred  to  them  afterwards  in  composing  his  works. 

In  June  1790,  he  sent  Otto  a  list  of  thirty-two  subjects 
which  he  intended  to  work  up.  Most  of  them  were 
finished  in  the  course  of  this  and  the  following  year. 
We  here  give  a  few  to  show  of  what  kind  they  were. 

"Description  of  the  Public  and  Private  Libraries" 
(comic  appendix  to  "  Titan").  "  Devilocracy,  instead  of 
Theocracy  "  (unprinted).  "  Critique  of  the  Opera  of  the 
holy  Kingdomcome."  **  That  Women  are  our  Popes " 
("Invisible  Lodge").  "Grimaces"  (unprinted).  "Law- 
courts  of  Love."  "  Description  of  my  Epitaph "  (un- 
printed).   "  Female  Fainting  Fits  "  ("  Invisible  Lodge  "). 

In  the  same  year,  1790,  he  also  wrote  the  "Bavarian 
Kreuzer  Comedy,"  which  strangely  enough  remained  un- 
printed, and  eventually  found  place  in  "  The  Paper  Kite," 
Frankfort,  1845.  But  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  he 
wrote  his  works  off-hand.  For  the  smallest  of  them  he 
kept  special  books,  and  carefully  worked  out  the  i:)lan8, 
characters,  and  descriptions  beforehand,  so  that  each 
separate  work  occupied  at  least  as  much,  time  in  prepara- 
tion as  in  execution. 

When  we  see  that  with  all  these  many  and  various 
occupations  Kichter  found  time  to  keep  a  written  account 
in  his  diary  of  his  daily  life,  and  to  enter  with  his  own 
hand  all    his   letters   in  a   correspondence   book;    it  ia 

2 


XXXVl  BIOGRAPHY. 

difBcTilt  to  imagine  where  his  material  life,  with  its 
necessities,  can  have  found  a  place. 

His  productions  still  met  with  no  success,  but  in  spite 
of  all  difficulties  he  worked  on  with  obstinate  perseverance 
and  in  February  1792,  after  eleven  months'  labour,  he 
completed  his  first  novel,  the  "  Invisible  Lodge."  This 
lie  sent  to  one  Moritz,  at  Berlin,  in  whose  work,  "  Anton 
Eeisser,"  he  had  recognised  a  kindred  spirit,  with  a  letter, 
from  which  the  following  is  an  extract : — 

"  I  would  that  you  had  already  read  this  sheet,  that  I 
might  not  blush  under  your  astonishment  on  seeing  this 
volume.  The  black  oilskin  contains,  like  life,  a  man's 
character,  his  joys  and  griefs;  a  half-broken  plan;  in 
short  a  novel — I  had  almost  written  a  man.  *  Why,'  I 
ask  myself,  '  dost  thou  send  a  German  novel — for  this 
species  of  literary  spawn,  begotten  by  generatio  cequivoca, 
is  repulsive  to  a  man  of  taste — to  one  whom  thou 
lovest ;  who  has  so  often  made  thee  sad  by  showing  thee 
what  life  is,  and  what  man,  who  casts  his  leaves  therein, 
what  the  pointed  moment  of  time  is  on  which  we  stand ; 
and  how  a  world  lies  between  our  short  sleep  and  dream,  and 
a  little  earth  between  those  who  are  sleeping  and  dreaming 
somewhat  longer.*  One  is  sad  when  one  finishes  a  book, 
for  one  thinks  of  all  other  things  which  one  will  finish — 
I  am  not  now  in  good  enough  spirits  to  be  clear. 

"  As  I  send  you  the  book,  I  should  in  vain  endeavour  to 
hide  from  you  the  opinion  which  I  have  of  it,  and  which 
has  not  allowed  me  to  put  it  in  circulation,  like  a 
defaced  Louis  d'or,  on  the  book  exchange  and  to  offer 
it  to  the  unfeeling  touch  of  intellectual  slave-dealers,  who 
are  unknown  to  me.  It  is  sweet  to  me  to  know  that  I 
send,  it  to  a  heart  which— excepting  its  superiority — is 
like  the  one  under  which  it  has  been  born  and  nourished. 
If  after  reading  it  you  should  think  it  worthy  to  be  read 
by  the  few  who  are  like  you,  I  beg  you,  either  through 


BIOGRAPHY.  XXXVU 

your  opinion,  or  by  a  few  pages  or  the  whole,  to  procure 
for  it  a  commercial  hand  who  will  conduct  it  from  the 
written  into  the  printed  world.  ^^  j  p  -p  -p  »» 

After  so  many  vain  attempts,  Richter's  hopes  for  the 
success  of  this  despatch  were  not  very  high;  and  the 
greater,  therefore,  was  his  surprise  when  Moritz  at  once 
wrote,  heartily  congratulating  him  on  his  work  and 
desiring  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  the  author  without 
delay.  A  publisher  was  found  in  Matzdorff,  the  brother- 
in-law  of  Moritz,  and  Eichter  before  long  had  the  grati- 
fication of  laj^ng  a  sum  of  100  ducats  in  the  lap  of  his 
poor  and  much  astonished  mother. 

End  of  the  Tutorship. — Weimar. — Illness. — Death. 
1792—1824. 

In  the  autumn  of  1792  Jean  Paul  began  his  second 
important  work,  the  "  Hesperus."  He  still,  however, 
retained  his  post  as  tutor  until  the  spring  of  1794« 
when  the  eldest  of  his  pupils  entered  the  high  school  at 
Baireuth,  and  he  returned  to  his  mother's  little  room  at 
Hof.  To  make  the  life  of  this  good  woman  happier,  was 
now  his  first  object. 

With  the  "Invisible  Lodge"  he  had  entered  on  his 
proper  path.  For  though  he  could  not  entirely  renounce 
either  jesting  or  sarcasm,  he  never  again  wrote  a  book 
wholly  of  satires  like  the  "  Devil's  Paper"  or  the  "  Green- 
land Lawsuits."  A  number  of  fresh  projects  now  arose 
in  his  mind,  to  all  of  which  he  made  a  beginning.  The 
'* Hesperus,'  begun  in  September  1792,  was  finished  in 
June  1794.  "Siebenkiis"  was  commenced  in  the  mean- 
time, and  the  groundwork  to  "Titan"  was  also  laid. 
"Quintus  Fixlein,"  with  its  jocular  and  touching  ap- 
pendices was  now  written  and  at  the  end  of  a  year  it 
passed  into  a  second  edition  together  with  the  "  History 


n/ 


XXX\lll  BIOGEAPHl. 

of  its  Prefaces,"  and  the  "Annihilation."  At  the  same 
time  too  appeared  the  "Biographical  Diversions." 

His  rising  fame  brought  him  many  invitations  to  vihit 
Weimar,  the  centre  of  German  literature  and  when,  in 
June  1796,  he  made  a  journey  thither,  he  appears  to  have 
been  welcomed  with  enthusiasm.  He  there  became  per- 
sonally acquainted  with  Herder,  Knebel,  Einsiedel  and 
Frau  von  Kalb.  Wieland  who  at  that  time  was  absent 
in  Switzerland  wrote  to  express  his  pleasure  in  the 
prospect  of  making  Richter's  acquaintance.  By  Schiller 
and  Goethe,  who  had  already  expressed  unfavourable 
opinions  about  his  writings,  he  was  not  so  cordially 
welcomed,  but  his  presence  seems  so  far  to  have  had  an 
effect,  that  Goethe  declared  himself,  "  favourably  disposed 
towards  him  on  account  of  his  love  of  truth  and  desire  of 
improvement,"  while  Schiller  not  only  invited  him  to 
become  a  contributor  to  the  "  Horen,"  but  even  wished 
him  to  settle  down  permanently  at  Jena.  He  also  became 
acquainted  with  the  Duchess  Amalie,  at  whose  castle  at 
Tieffurth  near  Weimar  he  was  a  frequent  visitor. 

His  increasing  fame  and  the  appreciation  which  he  met 
with  wherever  he  went,  began  to  make  him  dissatisfied 
with  the  limited  life  in  the  village  of  Hof,  and  on  the 
death  of  his  mother  which  occurred  at  this  time,  he 
removed  to  Leipzig.  He  did  not  however  remain  there 
long,  and  in  1798  removed  to  Weimar.  Here,  through  the 
influence  of  Jacobi  and  Herder  whose  "  Metakritik"  he  read 
over  with  him  in  manuscript,  his  interest  in  philosophy 
was  again  roused.  The  negative  doctrines  of  Kant  and 
the  idealism  of  Fichte  found  no  favour  with  him.  His 
nature  demanded  a  belief  in  God,  and  a  faith  in  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul,  and  he  appears  to  have  had  a  much 
greater  sympathy  with  Herder  and  Jaccbi.  In  the  Letters 
to  his  future  son  Hans  Paul  he  opposed  the  critical  school 
with  much  philosophical  acuteness  and  also  with  his  own 


BIOGRAPHY.  XXX IX 

peculiar  weapons  of  humour  and  satire  ;  against  Fichte 
he  directed  his  "  Claris  Fichtina." 

^Vhile  at  Weimar  he  appears  to  have  been  a  frequent 
visitor  at  the  court  of  Hildburghausen.  "  Imagine,"  ho 
writes  to  Otto,  "  the  angelic  duchess  with  her  beautiful 
childlike  eyes,  her  whole  face  filled  with  love  and  youth 
and  grace,  with  a  nightingale's  voice  and  a  mother's 
heart,  then  her  sister,  the  Princess  of  Solms,  still  more 
beautiful  and  just  as  good,  and  the  third,  the  Princess  of 
'J'hurn  and  Taxis,  both  of  whom  arrived  with  their 
healthy,  happy  children  the  same  day  as  I  did.  Thes6 
people  love  me  and  read  my  books  most  heartily  and  wish 
only  that  I  would  remain  another  week,  to  see  the  fourth 
noble  and  beautiful  sister,  the  Queen  of  Prussia.  I  am 
always  invited  to  dinner  and  supper.  Yesterday  I 
iiuprovised  on  the  piano  before  the  court." 

One  result  of  the  visit  to  Hildburghausen  was  that  the 
Duke  conferred  on  him  the  title  and  privileges  of  a 
Leijazionsrath  ( Councillor  of  Legation),  and  another  that  he 
dedicated  his  "  1'itan,"  upon  which  he  was  now  engaged,  to 
the  "four  sisters  upon  the  throne,"  and  a  third  that  he 
became  engaged  to  one  of  the  court  ladies,  Fraulein 
Caroline  von  Feuchtersleben.  This  engagement  howevePj 
like  a  former  one,  appears  to  have  been  amicably  broken  off, 
both  parties  recognising  that  the  difference  in  their  posi- 
tions and  lives  threw  difficulties  in  the  way  of  their  union. 

It  was  in  the  following  }ear,  when  in  Berlin,  that 
he  met  the  lady  who  was  to  be  his  wife.  This  was  Caro* 
line,  the  second  daughter  of  the  Ohertrihunatrath  Maier. 
1  heir  marriage  was  celebrated  in  May  1801. 

While  at  Meiningen  where  they  first  settled,  and  after- 
wards at  Coburg,  Kichter  devoted  himself  diligently  to 
reading  and  working.  The  six  volumes  of  the  "  Titan,'* 
of  which  two  had  already  appeared,  were  completed. 
Between  the  second  and  third  he  wrote  a  few  small ei 


Xl  BIOGRAPHY. 

works.  "The  secret  Complaint  of  Men  of  the  present 
Time,"  and  "Strange  Company  on  New  Year's  Night,"  and 
also  the  second  comic  appendix  to  "  Titan."  About  this 
time  too  he  was  working  at  the  "  Wildcats  "  which  he  at 
first  intended  to  publish  with  the  title  "History  of  my 
Brother,"  and  the  "  Death  in  the  other  World."  Kequests 
from  all  sides  for  small  contributions  for  albums  and 
periodicals  threatened  to  overwhelm  him  ;  however  much 
he  might  desire  to  withstand  these,  he  could  not  return  a 
negative  to  all  the  demands,  and  we  owe  many  valuable 
essays  to  these  applications.  In  February  1802,  he  wrote 
to  Otto  that,  after  the  "  Wildcats,"  he  would  finish 
the  "Biographical  Diversions,"  and  then  write  "Sieben- 
kas'  Marriage  with  Natalie,"  and  after  that  nothing  but 
critical  and  philosophical  works.  The  "  Biographical 
Diversions  "  was  intended  as  a  companion  novel  to  "  Titan," 
and  Eichter  made  preparations  for  it  with  this  inten- 
tion ;  for  "  Siebenkas'  Second  Marriage "  also  the  plan 
and  many  studies  still  exist,  but  neither  of  these  works 
was  completed,  though  many  a  humorous  and  elevating 
work  followed  besides  the  critical  and  philosophical  ones. 

While  at  Coburg,  Jean  Paul  suffered  a  severe  loss  in  the 
death  of  Herder.  To  his  grief  for  his  friend  is  probably 
due  the  change  which  we  notice  at  this  time  in  his 
writings.  The  "  Wildcats,"  which  he  had  been  working 
at  with  great  pleasure,  was  now  laid  aside,  and  with  it  all 
imaginative  writing.  He  turned  to  the  "  Introduction  to 
iiEsthetics,"  and  after  the  completion  of  that,  commenced 
preparations  for  the  "  Levana."  In  1804  he  removed  to 
Baireuth,  where  he  devoted  himself,  if  possible,  with  more 
energy  than  ever  to  his  work.  After  the  completion  of 
the  "Levana,"  we  find  him  next  writing  on  political 
subjects. 

His  admiration  for  Napoleon's  greatness  struggled  for 
some  time  with  his  patriotism.     For  humanity  he  would 


BIOGRAPHY.  xli 

have  sacrificed  his  nationality;  but  when  the  conqueror 
showed  himself  the  enemy  of  both,  Eichter  no  longer 
hesitated  on  which  side  to  place  himself.  But  he 
sympathised  as  little  in  the  dirge  of  the  despondent  as 
in  the  cry  of  hatied  against  the  enemy,  and  least  of  all 
did  he  share  in  the  fear  of  Germany's  annihilation.  Hope 
seems  to  have  been  the  keynote  of  his  compositions,  and 
in  the  midst  of  the  din  of  war  he  cheered  his  countrymen 
with  "  The  Chicken-hearted  Attila  Schmelzle,"  "  Fibel  the 
Coxcomb,"  and  "  The  Droll  Cjmic  Katzenberger."  While 
with  the  more  serious  "  Twilight "  and  the  ''  Peace  "  and 
"Lent  Sermons"  he  warned,  admonished  and  soothed 
them. 

The  following  letter  to  Otto  in  May  1808  gives  one  a 
glimpse  of  his  feelings  and  opinions  at  this  time : 

"  My  heart  is  now  rigid,  barren  and  cold.  The  spring 
with  all  its  starry  heavens  is  nothing  to  me.  I  shall 
remain  rigid  and  cold  until  the  great  world-game  has 
been  won.  This  however  does  not  withhold  me— it  spurs 
me  on — from  working  zealously  with  my  individual 
powers  for  the  general  good.  Let  him  whom  the  time 
strikes  down,  first  raise  himself  again,  and  then  it  with 
him.  If  the  plurality  of  devils  has  some  power,  that  of 
angels  has  still  more.  Still  more,  I  say,  for  human  nature 
gives  ten  angels  the  balance  against  one  hundred  devils.  ,  . 
If  this  were  not  so,  humanity  instead  of  rising  would  long 
since  have  sunk  under  the  preponderance  of  the  weak,  the 
stupid  and  the  bad." 

W  hilo  his  opinions  strengthened  the  love  of  many  of 
his  old  friends  and  also  gained  him  many  new  ones,  they 
did  not  fail,  on  the  other  hand,  to  estrange  many  from 
him.  Among  these  latter  was  the  Duke  Emil  August  of 
Gotha,  who  had  formerly  been  one  of  his  great  admirers. 
The  loss  of  his  favour,  however,  was  compensated  for  by 


Xlii  BIOGRAPHY. 

the  frlendsliip  of  another  German  Prince,  namely,  Carl 
von  Dalberg,  Prince  of  Primas.  He  was  the  first  who 
remembered  the  princely  privilege  of  showing  gratitude 
in  the  name  of  his  people  to  their  benefactor,  and  not 
content  with  admiring  Richter's  genins  and  praising  his 
powers,  he  thought  also  of  the  conditions  necessary  for  the 
development  of  these  powers  and  granted  him  a  yearly 
pension  of  1000  guldens.  Such  assistance  was  the  more  wel- 
come as  the  King  of  Prussia  had  withdrawn  a  promise,  given 
some  years  before,  that  he  would  grant  him  a  prebendary. 

The  "Autumn  Flowers,"  published  in  1810,  is  a  collection 
of  essays  and  short  pieces  on  political  and  other  subjects, 
which  had  first  appeared  in  magazines  and  which  he  now 
collected  into  a  volume.  Two  years  later,  after  the 
termination  of  the  war,  he  commenced  "  Nicolaus  Margraf  " 
(The  Comet),  a  comic  novel.  He  appears  to  have  made 
more  extensive  preparations  for  this  than  for  any  other 
of  his  books,  and  worked  at  it  with  much  pleasure.  "  I 
am  now  boiling  and  roasting  over  a  large  comic  work," 
he  writes  in  July  1813.  "  But  in  it  I  have  vowed  I  will 
not  again  do  as  I  have  done  hitherto,  for  in  all  my 
comic  works,  like  a  child  born  ball-shape  and  straightway 
crucified  on  a  pillow,  I  have  yielded  to  the  strict  rules  of 
art,  and  have,  alas !  been  only  too  proper ;  now  I  will  give 
myself  the  reins  and  go  where  I  will — up,  down,  in 
flights  and  springs— with  real  boldness.  My  friend,  I 
will  retrieve  and  postscript  my  youth  in  age." 

Too  much  work  and  anxiety  began  about  this  time 
to  tell  on  Eichter's  robust  health,  and  we  find  him 
making  frequent  little  tours  for  the  sake  of  change  of 
scene.  On  one  of  these  trips  in  1812,  he  met  with 
F.  H.  Jacobi  in  Nurnberg,  with  whom  he  had  long  corres- 
ponded but  not  met  personally.  Four  years  later,  when 
visiting  Regensburg,  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Prince 
Primas  Carl  von  Dalberg,  whom  we  have  already  men- 


BIOGRAPHY.  Xliii 

tioned.  With  him  Richter  seems  to  have  been  on  good 
terms.  He  writes  to  Otto,  "I  have  never  in  so  short 
a  time  become  one-eighth  part  so  fond  of  a  prince.  Of  an 
evening  we  often  sit  until  dusk  before  the  half-emptied 
bottle  and  talk  of  religion,  philosophy  and  scientific  topics 
of  all  kinds."  The  following  year  (1817),  Eichter  visited 
Heidelberg,  where  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  such  men 
as  Yoss,  Paulus,  Hegel,  Schwarz.  He  here  received  his  , 
doctor's  degree,  and  was  feted  by  professors  and  students 
as  he  had  never  been  before.  To  his  wife  he  writes, 
"I  have  passed  hours  here  such  as  I  have  never  ex- 
perienced under  the  brightest  heaven  of  my  life,  in 
particular  the  water-party,  the  students'  Ykats  and  the 
songs  from  the  old  Italian  music,  but  I  thank  the  Allgood 
as  well  as  I  can  by  gentleness,  modesty,  love  and  justice 
to  all."  The  piece  called  "  The  Evergreen  of  our  Feelings  " 
which  is  a  memorial  of  this  visit,  was  written  soon  after 
his  return  home.  Besides  new  editions  of  some  of  his  other 
works,  he  now  at  the  request  of  his  friends  began  the  Auto- 
biography, for  which  however  he  appears  to  have  had  no 
zest.  In  1818  he  wrote  to  Voss,  "  At  present  I  am  writing 
my  life,  though  I  would  rather  write  that  of  any  one  else, 
yet  I  must  do  it  for  no  one  knows  my  inner  life  but  God 
and  the  devil ;  the  form  however  of  the  Biography  will 
be  different  from  that  of  all  former  ones."  And  again,  "  I 
have  little  pleasure  in  the  Biography  because  there  is  no 
scope  for  imagination  in  it,  and  I  have  never  even  in 
novels  liked  to  let  the  bare  history  flow  on  without  the  two 
banks  of  jest  and  feeling,  and  also  because  I  care  for  no 
one  less  than  myself.  I  wish  I  could  relate  my  life  to 
you,  and  you  could  put  it  in  proper  shape ;  but  I  doubt 
not  I  shall  find  or  make  the  right  vehicle  for  it."  In  this 
frame  of  mind  he  attempted  to  weave  his  life  into  the 
story,  "  Nicolaus  Margraf,"  already  mentioned,  which  he 
was  now  writing,  or  to  bring  it  in  some  other  way  in  con- 


xliv  BIOGRAPHY. 

nexion  with  the  store  of  thoughts  and  ideas  which  he  nad 
hoarded  in  his  brain.  But  the  work  does  not  appear 
to  have  become  less  distasteful,  and  he  laid  it  aside  before 
he  had  proceeded  far  and  devoted  himself  with  more 
energy  to  the  "  Comet." 

We  now  fast  approach  the  end.  In  1821,  he  received 
a  blow  from  which  he  never  recovered,  in  the  death  of  his 
son  Max,  a  promising  young  man,  who  died  while  at  the 
university,  of  a  nervous  fever  brought  on  by  overwork, 
and  aggravated  by  a  despondent  state  of  mind  induced 
by  the  study  of  philosophy.  After  his  son's  death,  Eichter 
appears  to  have  lost  his  taste  for  satirical  humorous 
v/riting.  The  Autobiography  and  "  Comet "  were  laid 
aside  and  he  began  immediately  the  "  Selina,"  a  work 
on  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  which  however  he  did  not 
live  to  finish.  In  the  spring  following  his  son's  death 
while  he  was  staying  at  Dresden  whither  he  had  gone 
to  recruit  his  health,  he  found  that  he  was  fast  losing  the 
sight  of  one  of  his  eyes.  Doctors  and  opticians  were 
unable  to  help  him,  and  symptons  of  dropsy  which  showed 
themselves  necessitated  a  course  of  treatment  which 
increased  the  malady  in  his  eyes.  The  last  weeks  of  his 
life  were  spent  with  his  nephew,  Otto  Spazier,  in  revising 
his  works  for  a  complete  edition.  He  does  not  appear 
to  have  thought  that  his  end  was  so  near,  and  looked 
forward  with  much  pleasure  to  completing  the  work 
he  had  already  begun.  But  towards  the  last  his  strength 
failed  him  rapidly,  and  on  the  14th  of  November,  1824,  hia^ 
spirit  found  its  rest. 


%i 


JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDEICH  RICHTER, 


AUTOBIOGEAFHY. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


FIKST  LECTUEE. 

WONSiEDEL — BIRTH — GRANDFATHER. 

My  dear  Friends, — It  was  in  the  year  1763,  on  February 
loth,  that  the  peace  of  Hubertsbiirg  came  to  this  world, 
and  after  it  the  present  Professor  of  the  history  of  him- 
self; and  this  in  the  month  in  which  the  yellow  and 
grey  wagtails,  the  redbreasts,  the  cranes,  and  other 
snipes  and  waders,  arrived  with  him,  namely,  in  the 
month  of  March, — and  this,  too,  on  that  day  of  the  month 
on  which  the  spoonwort  and  the  trembling  poplar  the 
speedwell  and  the  henbit,  just  come  opportunely  into 
blossom  for  anyone  who  may  wish  to  strew  flowers  on  the 
cradle,  namely,  on  the  21st  of  March, — and  this,  too,  in  the 
earliest,  freshest  time  of  day,  namely,  at  1.30  a.m.;  but 
what  crowns  all,  is,  that  the  beginning  of  his  life  was  at 
the  same  time  the  beginning  of  that  Spring. 

This  last  idea,  that  I,  the  Professor,  and  the  Spring 
were  bom  together,  has  been  introduced  by  me  in  conver- 
sation, I  suppose,  a  hundred  times  already ;  but  1  inten- 
tionally discharge  it  here,  like  a  cannon-shot,  for  the  101st 
time,  in  order  that  by  the  discharge  I  may  be  incapaci- 
tated from  offering  again  as  a  honmoi-bonbon  that  which 
has  already  been  handed  round  to  the  whole  world  through 
the  printer's  devil.  It  is  a  misfortune  when  Fate  herself 
has  laid  a  pun,  like  a  nest-egg,  in  the  history  of  anyone, 
Ixi  he  the  wittiest  of  men,  and  let  him  hatch  now  ideas 
Jjy  bushels;  for  on  this  egg  he  sits  and  broods  a  whole 
lifetime,  in  hopca  of  hatching  something.     For  instance,  I 

B  2 


4         -.  JEAN/^AXp-.-FSIEDRlCH   RICHTER. 

once  knew  a  barber  and  a  coachman,  both  of  v^  horn,  on 
being  asked  Tvhat  thej^  'vror.e  called,  invariably  answered, 
neither  differently,  nor  more  simply  or  less  wittily,  than, 
Ihr  gehorsamer  Diener  (Your  humble  servant) ;  or  else, 
Lir  Diener  Diener  (Your  servant  Diener) ;  now  the  cause 
was  that  each  had  the  misfortune  to  be  called  Diener 
(servant),  and  thus  the  indelible  mark  (character  indehilis) 
of  a  standard  joke  was,  as  it  were,  tonsured  on  their  heads, 
or  they  were  both  condemned  to  one  perpetual  idea ;  the 
trade  wind  of  their  wit  blew  continually  in  one  direction. 
And  still  less,  my  honoured  friends,  let  us  hope  to  sur- 
prise a  man  who  bears  a  name,  common  and  proper  at  the 
same  time,  such  as  Ochs  (Ox)  and  Bapinat  (Plunder)  both 
formerly  in  Switzerland —  Wolf^—Schlegel  (Mallet) — Bichter 
(judge) — to  surprise,  I  say,  such  a  double-named  man  with 
a  pun,  be  it  ever  so  brilliant ;  for  he  has  lived  long  enough 
with  his  name  for  any  pun  to  be  quite  stale  to  him,  which, 
to  his  new  acquaintance,  appears  new,  fresh  and  witty. 
Milliner,  now,  was  more  successful  with  his  pun  on  Sclwtten 
(Scotchmen)  and  Schatten  (shadows);  for  no  Svhotten  ever 
considered  themselves  Schatten,  and  no  Schatten  Schotten : 
they  are  eternally  separated  by  two  vowels. 

I  return  to  my  story,  and  find  myself  among  the  dead  ;  for 
all  are  now  out  of  the  world  who  saw  my  entrance  into  it. 
My  father,  J  ohann  Christian  Christoph  Eichter,  was  Terzius  * 
and  organist  in  Wonsiedel ;  my  mother,  Sophia  Eosina,  was 
the  daughter  of  a  cloth- weaver,  Johann  Paul  Kuhn,  in  Hof. 
On  the  day  following  my  birth,  I  was  baptized  by  the 
senior  Apel.  One  godfather  was  the  above-mentioned 
Johann  Paul;  the  other  was  Johann  Friedrich  Thieme, 
a  bookbinder,  who  did  not  know  at  that  time  on  what  a 
Maecenas  of  his  handicraft  he  bestowed  his  name;  from 
these  two  sprang  the  compound  name  Johann  Paul 
Friedrich,  the  grandfather's  half  of  which  I  translated 
into  French,  and  thus  made  of' it  one  complete  name — Jean 

*  To  understand  this  title  and  others  occurring  afterwatds,  the 
reader  must  know  that  a  German  gymnasium,  or  high  school,  has 
eight  masters — the  Bector,  or  headmaster,  Conrector,  Subrector,  Quintus, 
Qvartus,  Tertius,  Secundum,  Primus.  The  classes  are  arranged 
in  the  inverse  order ;  the  first  class,  or  Prima,  being  the  highest. 
Boys  in  the  Prirria  are  called  Primaners,  in  the  Secunda  Secunda- 
nere,  and  so  on. — Tr. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  5 

Paul,  for  reasons  which  will  be  fully  explained  in  later 
lectures  of  this  winter  season. 

But  for  the  present  we  will  let  the  hero  and  subject  of 
these  historical  lectures  lie  unheeded  in  the  cradle  and  on 
the  mother's  breast,  and  sleep  long  enough — from  the  long 
morning-sleep  of  life  there  is  little  of  general  historical  in- 
terest to  be  learned — sleep  long  enough  for  me  to  speak,  if 
only  shortly  and  insufficiently,  of  those  towards  whom 
my  heart  inclines  itself  and  my  pen — of  my  relations,  my 
father,  mother,  and  grandparents. 

My  father  was  the  son  of  the  Eector,*  Johann  Richter, 
in  Neustadt  at  Culm.  Little  is  known  of  him  except 
that  he  was  poor  and  pious  in  the  highest  degree.  When 
either  of  his  surviving  grandchildren  goes  to  Neustadt, 
he  is  still  received  with  grateful  love  and  joy  by  the  in- 
habitants ;  the  old  ones  tell  how  conscientious  and  strict 
were  his  life  and  his  tuition,  and  yet  how  cheerful.  A 
little  bench  behind  the  organ  is  still  shown  where  he 
knelt  every  Sunday  in  prayer,  and  a  cave,  too,  made  by 
himself  in  the  so-called  Culm,  wherein  to  pray,  which 
still  remained  until  the  time  when  his  fiery  son — although 
only  for  him  too  fiery — played  with  the  Muses  and  Penia. 

The  evening  twilight  was  a  daily  autumn  to  him,  in 
which  pacing  up  and  down  the  scantily  furnished  school- 
room, he  would  reap  the  harvest  of  the  day  and  prayer- 
fully think  over  the  sowing  for  the  morrow.  His  school- 
house  was  a  i)ri8on,  not  with  bread-and-water,  but  with 
bread-and-beer  fare  ;  more  than  this — with  perhaps  a  little 
pious  contentment  thrown  in — was  not  allowed  by  a 
rectorate,  though  united  with  the  offices  of  Cantor "f  and 
Organist ;  for,  in  spite  of  this  lion-society  of  three  offices, 
it  did  not  yield  more  than  150  guldens  per  annum.  At 
this  hunger-well,  not  uncommon  for  Baireuth  schoolmen, 
stood  the  man  who  had  formerly  been  Cantor  at  Rehau, 
for  five-and-thirty  long  years, — and  drew.  He  might 
assuredly  have  got  a  few  more  scraps  and  halfpennies  if 
he  had  been  promoted,  say,  to  the  post  of  country  clergy- 
man. Whenever  the  schoolmasters  change  their  clothes — 
when  they  exchange  the  school-gown  for  the  priest's  gown, 
— they  receive  better  victuals,  just  as  the  silkworms,  at  each 
•  See  note  above.  t  The  leader  of  the  choir. — Tr. 


0  JEAN  PAUL   FRTEDKICH   EICHTEK. 

fresh  skinning,  get  better  food ;  and  in  this  manner  snch 
a  man,  by  increase  of  his  work,  may  increase  his  income 
to  such  an  extent,  that  he  may  come  up  with  those  state 
officials  with  their  pensions  and  gratuities,  whose  five- 
note  lines  of  prizes  are  carried  through  the  complete  score 
of  the  cabinet,  in  spite  of  all  pauses  of  the  instrument. 

When  my  grandfather  called  on  the  boys'  parents, 
which  he  did  occasionally,  more  for  the  pupils'  than  the 
parents'  sake,  he  would  take  of  the  above-mentioned  beer 
and  bread,  at  which  he  remained  all  his  life,  a  piece  of 
the  latter  in  his  pocket,  and  expect  only  a  tankard  of  beer 
from  his  host.  At  length,  in  the  year  1763 — just  the  year 
of  my  birth — it  fell  out  that  he  was  elected,  probably 
thrt»ugh  special  connexions  with  some  Higher  Powers,  to 
an  important  position,  one  for  which  the  rectorate,  the  town, 
and  the  Culmberg  were  very  readily  given  up.  He  was 
exactly  seventy-six  years  four  months  and  eight  days  of 
age  when  he  actually  received  the  Faid  place  in  the  Neustadt 
— graveyard;  his  wife  had  already  gone  twenty  years 
before  to  her  place  beside  him.  My  parents  were  called  with 
me  to  his  death-bed  when  I  was  a  child  of  five  months  old. 

He  was  dying,  when  a  clergyman  (as  my  father  has 
often  told  me)  said  to  my  parents :  "  Let  the  old  Jacob 
lay  his  hand  on  the  child's  head  and  bless  him ;"  and  thus 

1  was  put  on  his  death-bed,  and  he  laid  his  hand  on  my 
head.  0  pious  grandfather !  Often  have  I  thought  of  thy 
hand  bleesing  me  while  already  growing  cold  in  death, 
when  fate  has  led  me  out  of  dark  hours  into  brighter ;  and 
I  can,  too,  hold  firm  to  my  belief  in  thy  blessing  in  a 
world  permeated  and  animated  by  Miracles  and  Spirits. 

My  father  was  bom  in  Neustadt  on  the  16th  of  December, 
1727 — bom,  I  might  say,  rather  for  the  winter  of  life  than, 
like  me,  for  a  spring,  had  not  his  vigorous  nature  been 
able  to  carve  a  safe  haven  for  him  even  among  the  icebergs. 
He  could  only  afford  to  enjoy,  or  rather  endure,  the 
Lyceum  at  Wonsiedel,  as  Luther  did  his  school  in  Eisen- 
ach, as  a  so-called  Alumnus  (poor  scholar) ;  for  when  a 
yearly  income  of  150  guldens  had  to  be  divided  between 
father,  mother,  and  several  sisters,  nothing  at  all,  or  at 
best  only  J.Zwwwwa-bread,  (jould  fall  to  his  share.  Later  he 
entered  the  Gymnasium  poeticum  at  Regensburg  in  order,  not 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  7 

only  to  hungerin  a  larger  town,  but  also  to  cultivate  the 
real  blossom  of  his  nature  instead  of  the  leaves, — which 
blossom  was  music.  In  the  chapel  of  the  Prince  of  Thurn 
and  Taxis — the  well-known  connoisseur  and  patron  of 
music — he  could  do  homage  to  the  saint  for  whose  service 
he  was  bom ;  and  twenty  years  later  he  became  a  favourite 
composer  of  church  music  in  the  principality  of  Baireuth. 
On  the  eve  of  Good  Friday  he  would  perform,  to  the  delight 
of  us  children  as  well  as  of  himself,  the  heilige  Allmacht,  with 
which  the  Catholics  edified  and  purified  their  souls  at  that 
time.  To  my  grief,  1  must  confess  that  when  some  years 
ago  1  was  in  Kegensburg,  amongst  all  its  antiquities  and 
remembrances — not  excepting  even  the  Imperial  Diet — my 
father's  hard  life  was  the  most  important  of  all  to  me ;  and 
often  in  the  palace  of  Thurn  and  Taxis,  and  in  the  narrow 
streets,  where  a  couple  of  stout  fellows  would  have  hard 
work  to  get  by  each  other,  I  have  thought  of  the  confined 
wixys  and  narrow  paths  of  his  youthful  days. 

Later,  at  Jena  and  Erlangen,  he  studied,  not  music,  but 
theology,  perhaps  merely  for  the  sake  of  worrying  himself 
for  a  time,  namely,  until  his  thirty-second  year,  as  a  private 
tutor  at  Baireuth,  in  which  town  his  son  has  collected  the 
whole  of  this  information.  For  by  the  year  1760  he  had 
already  wrested  from  the  state  the  post  of  Organist  and 
Terzius  in  the  town  of  Wonsiedel,  and  thus  in  this  matter 
had  more  and  earlier  good-luck,  under  the  Markgraf  of 
Baireuth,  than  that  candidate  in  Hanover  (of  whom  we 
read),  who,  being  seventy  years  old,  received  no  other  posi- 
tion in  the  church  than  the  one  close  by  in  the  churchyard. 

But  now,  I  pray,  let  not  any  of  my  audience  fear,  from 
what  has  been  alread)^  said,  that  they  are  going  to  be 
introduced  to  a  pitiable  object  of  a  father,  who,  like  many 
a  modem  hypocrite,  goes  about  swaddled  in  tear-soaked 
handkerchiefs  ;  he  lived  on  wings,  and  was  sought  in  the 
families  of  Brandenburg,  and  Schopf  as  the  pleasantest  and 
most  amusing  companion.  This  power  of  social  humour 
accompanied  him  throughout  his  life,  though  in  his  minis- 
terial duties  he  was  known  as  one  of  the  strictest  of  divines, 
and  in  the  pulpit  as  a  so-called  law-preacher.  He  won 
the  hearts  of  his  relations  in  his  native  town  by  his 
enthusiastic  sermons,  and  in  Hof  in  the  Voigtland  he  won 


8  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICII    KICHTER. 

something  still  more  important — a  bride,  and,  what  was 
yet  more  difficult,  her  rich  parents  into  the  bargain. 
When  a  citizen,  who  has  become  wealthy  by  cloth-making 
and  veil- selling,  does  not  refuse  the  prettiest,  and  most  loved 
of  his  two  delicately  nurtured  daughters  to  a  needy  Terzius, 
who,  together  with  his  creditors,  lives  within  a  day's 
journey  of  him, — then,  I  say,  this  Terzius  on  the  one  hand 
can  only  have  overcome  daughter  and  parents  by  much 
merit  of  his  personal  attractions,  and  by  the  fame  and  im- 
pressiveness  of  his  great  pulpit  gifts ;  and  on  the  other  hand 
there  must  have  dwelt  in  the  cloth-weaver  a  soul  above 
his  cloth  and  money,  for  which  talent  and  clerical  worth 
shone  with  more  lustre  than  did  the  glittering  silver  of  an 
ordinary  being.  On  the  13th  of  October,  1761,  the  beloved 
went  as  bride  with  her  treasures  to  the  cramped  little 
school-house,  which  luckily  was  not  made  any  smaller  by 
house-furniture.  His  cheerful  disposition,  his  indifference 
to  money,  united  with  his  confidence  in  his  housekeeper, 
left  abundance  of  superfluous  empty  room  in  the  Terzius 
conch-shell  for  all  moveable  possessions  from  Hof  which 
might  wish  to  take  up  their  abode  with  him;  but  my 
mother — in  those  days  married  people  were  so,  and  a  few 
are  still — minded  the  bareness  throughout  her  married  life 
as  little  as  my  father  himself  did.  The  strong  man  should 
have  courage  to  wed  either  the  rich  landowner,  or,  just  as 
well,  the  poor  housekeeper. 

In  my  historical  lectures,  I  warn  you,  hunger  will  occur 
with  ever-increasing  power — in  the  case  of  the  hero  it 
reaches  a  very  high  pitch — and  as  often,  I  daresay,  as  the 
feasting  in  Thiimmel's  "  Travels,"  and  the  tea-drinking  in 
Richardson's  "  Clarissa ; "  yet  I  cannot  help  saying  to 
poverty,  "  Be  welcome !  provided  only  that  thou  comest 
not  quite  too  late  in  life."  Riches  fetter  talent  more  than 
poverty :  many  an  intellectual  giant  may  lie  stifled  under 
thrones  and  golden  mountains.  When  the  oil  of  wealth 
is  poured  on  the  flames  of  youth,  and  especially  of  the 
more  ardent,  stronger  youth,  then  will  little  more  be  left 
of  the  Phoenix  than  the  ashes ;  only  a  Goethe  has  the  power 
to  keep  his  Phoenix  wings  unsinged  in  the  sun  of  pros- 
perity. The  poor  historical  Professor  would  not,  for  much 
money,  have  had  much  money  in  his  youth.   Fate  does  with 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  9 

poets,  as  we  do  with  birds — it  darkens  the  warbler's  cage 
until  he  has  caught  the  oft-played  air  that  he  is  to  sing. 

But  spare,  0  just  Fate,  the  old  man  from  want,  for  he 
it  is  who  ought  not — must  not — be  without.  The  heavy- 
years  have  bent  his  back  too  much  already,  he  can  no 
more  erect  himself  as  the  youth,  and  carry  his  burdens 
lightly  on  his  head.  The  old  man,  while  still  on  the  earth, 
already  needs  the  rest  within  it ;  of  the  world  he  can  use  only 
the  present  and  but  little  future,  for  now  he  has  no  more 
the  planting,  blooming  future  as  foil  for  his  present.  Two 
steps  from  the  last  and  lowest  bed,  with  no  other  curtains 
than  the  flowers,  he  wishes  still  to  rest  and  to  slumber 
a  little  in  the  old  grandfather's  chair ;  and,  half  asleep,  to 
open  his  eyes  once  more,  and  gaze  on  the  old  stars  and 
meadows  of  youth.  And  I  have  little  objection — for  he 
has  done  the  most  important  part  for  the  next  as  well  as 
this  world — if,  in  the  evening,  he  looks  forward  to  his 
breakfast  next  morning,  and  in  the  morning  to  his  bed, 
and  if  the  world  lets  him  depart,  in  his  second  childhood, 
amid  those  harmless  pleasures  of  the  senses,  with  which 
she  received  him  in  his  first. 

Only  one  single  error  on  my  father's  part  may  be  laid 
to  the  charge  of  poverty,  namely,  that  he  sacrificed 
himself  like  a  monk  to  his  ministerial  office,  instead  of 
devoting  himself  with  his  whole  musical  soul  to  the  tone- 
muse  ;  that  he  suffered  his  genius  to  be  buried  in  a  village 
church.  The  Church-ship  was  in  those  days,  it  is  true — 
particularly  in  the  opinion  of  Burger  parents-in-law — the 
Provision-ship  or  Air-ship,  and  the  needy  son  of  music 
strove  to  run  into  the  haven  of  the  pulpit.  But  whoever 
feels  in  himself  a  declination  and  inclination  of  his 
magnet- needle,  not  urged  on  him  by  wants  or  education, 
but  growing  up  with  him,  let  him  follow  its  pointing 
with  confidence,  as  that  of  a  compass  through  the  desert. 
Had  the  present  Professor  of  history  imitated  his  father, 
as  the  latter  wished,  he  now,  instead  of  giving  these 
lectures,  would  be  delivering  sacred  official  discourses  and 
Bpeeches,  both  casual  and  othei'wise  ;  and  would  probably 
be  enrolled  in  the  universal  "  Magazine  for  Preachers/* 
only,  alas,  to  swell  it  more  immoderately. 

But  my  father  was  not  in  reality  unfaithful  either  to 


10  JEAN  PAUL   FKIEDRICH   RICHTER. 

himself  or  his  muse ;  for  did  she  not  visit  him,  as  his  old 
love,  in  the  cloister  attire  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  bringing 
him  the  church  music  every  week  to  the  lonely,  toneless 
parish  of  Joditz  ?  And,  on  the  other  hand,  there  dwelt  in 
him  also  another  power  besides  his  musical  talent,  which 
sought  play-room  in  the  pulpit ;  for  although,  as  the  old 
saying  tells  us,  great  musicians  are  generally  given  to 
the  sensual  pleasure  of  drinking,  and,  as  Lavater  says,  to 
that  of  eating,  and  in  this  way  the  Kapellmeister*  may 
appear  as  his  own  cellar-master  and  steward,  yet  one  does 
not  hear  that  they  were  particularly  good  pulpit  orators  in 
addition  to  this.  Eloquence,  the  prosaic  wall-and-door 
neighbour  to  poetry,  dwelt  in  my  father's  ministerial 
heart;  and  the  same  sunbeams  of  genius,  which  in  the 
morning  of  his  life  awakened  melodious  strains,  as  in  a 
Memnon's  statue,  united  afterwards  in  the  pulpit  a  genial 
light  with  the  thunder  of  the  law. 

I  am  quite  aware,  my  friends,  that  I  am  talking  a  long 
time  of  my  relations  and  praising  them  highly ;  but  I  will 
immediately  begin,  I  assure  you,  to  speak  of  myself,  and 
then  I  shall  with  difficulty  stop  again.  This  very  praise 
which  I  bestow  on  my  father  would  appear  to  him,  if  he 
was  still  living,  just  as  important  as  it  appears  vain  to 
me,  when  I  picture  him  to  myself  in  Eternity,  where  he 
will  not  be  particularly  proud,  amongst  the  blessed,  that 
in  the  year  1818  he  was  again  announced  from  my 
lecturing  chair  as  a  composer  of  church  music  in  the 
principality  of  Baireuth — and  just  this  and  a  similar 
coldness  must  my  son  expect  of  me,  if  ever  on  some  future 
day,  after  I  have  become  a  spirit,  he  shall  eagerly  tell  to 
the  world  the  universal  applause  which  my  works  have 
won, — but  let  him  on  this  account  paint  them,  as  little  as 
I  have  done,  either  more  coldly  or  more  shortly. 

The  fact  is,  most  honoured  sirs,  I  would  ten  times 
rather  give  you  historical  lectures  on  my  forefathers  than 
on  myself.  What  a  different  form  does  the  past  take, 
which  otherwise  were  so  unfamiliar  to  us,  when  our 
relations  pass  through  it  and  link  it  in  brotherly  alliance 
with   our   present!      That   man  is   to   be   envied  whose 

*  The  Kapellmeister,  or  Capellmeister,  is  the  director  of  the  royaJ 
orchestral  band. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  11 

history  accompanies  him  back  from  bis  forefathers  to  tlieir 
forefathers,  and  thus  colours  a  grey  time  with  green.  For 
we  cannot  paint  the  times  in  which  our  grandparents  and 
great-grandparents  lived,  even  when  they  themselves 
were  old,  otherwise  than  in  the  brightness  and  freshness 
of  youth  ;  just  as  in  reality  we  compose  our  future  world 
of  old  men  and  not  of  youths. 

1  return  at  length  to  the  hero  and  subject  of  our 
lectures,  and  call  particular  attention  to  the  fact  that 
I  was  bom  in  Wonsiedel  (wrongly  called  Wunsiedel),  a 
town  on  the  Fichtelgebirge.  The  Fichtelgebirge,  one  of 
the  highest  regions  of  Germany,  gives  health  to  its 
inhabitants  (they  would  be  the  first  to  dispense  with  the 
Alexanderbad),  and  strong,  tall  figures ;  and  the  Professor 
leaves  ir,  to  his  audience  to  decide  whether  he  appears  in 
his  chair  of  office  as  a  confirmation  of,  or  an  exception  to 
this.  It  is  vexatious,  I  may  add,  for  a  man  who  would 
best  like  to  make  himself  a  name  in  his  native  town,  that 
the  Wonsiediers  swallow  the  r  at  the  beginning  and 
end  of  the  words  with  which,  as  every  one  knows,  the 
name  "  Richter "  must  commence  and  finish.  The  an- 
cestors of  the  Wonsiediers,  moreover,  have  been  crowned 
from  all  times  with  laurel  wreaths  for  their  bravery  in 
war,  which  is  what  I  must  wish  for  them  as  my  village 
ancestors ;  'and  from  history*  it  is  sufficiently  well  known 
how  they  withstood  and  defeated  the  Hussites ;  and  if  for 
"Hussites"  we  put  "critics,"  anyone  who  will  count  my 
victories  over  the  enemies  from  Hussite  Nikolai  to  Hussite 
Merkel,  will  perhaps  think  that  the  race  has  not  de- 
generated in  bravery. 

In  Wonsiedel,  the  sixth  town  of  the  six  so-called  Con- 
federate States,  there  was  always,  at  any  rate  for  Patriotism 
and  for  societies  for  help  and  justice,  a  sixth  creation  day, 
and  German  love,  fidelity,  and  strength  took  up  their 
abode  there.  I  am  glad  to  have  been  born  in  thee,  thou 
little   town   under   the   long   and   lofty  mountain-range, 

♦  According  to  the  detailed  account  of  the  Fichtel-berg  (Leipzig, 
1716),  p.  52,  the  Hussites  had  laid  waste  the  whole  of  the  land  aoove 
the  mountain  range ;  but  on  the  Friday  before  Pentecost  the 
Wonsiediers  repulsed  18,000  of  the  Bohemians,  who  had  stormed  their 
town  throe  timea. 


12  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH  RIOHTER. 

whose  tops  look  down  on  ns  like  eagle-heads.  Thou  hast 
adorned  thy  mountain  throne  by  the  steps  thereto,  and 
thy  healing  spring  gives  strength — not  to  thee — but  to 
the  sick,  to  climb  to  the  c^^nopy  above  him  and  to  the 
command  of  the  distant  villages  and  plains.  I  am  glad 
to  have  been  born  in  thee,  thou  little  but  good  and  bright 
to 'An. 

It  has  often  been  remarked  that  the  first-born  are 
geneially  of  the  female  sex.  To  this  observation  the 
subject  of  our  history  is  no  exception,  in  spite  of  his 
right  of  primogeniture ;  for  as  his  parents  were  married 
in  October,  1761,  and  he  was  born  in  March,  1763,  another 
little  being  (as  he  has  heard),  for  this  world  only  a 
shadow,  had  gone  before  him  and  begun  its  existence  in 
the  light  of  another  world,  perhaps  without  having  seen 
the  light  of  this  one. 

The  far-reaching  memories  of  childhood  bring  joy  to 
the  tottering  man,  striving  in  this  wave-existence  to  get  a 
firm  hold  anywhere ;  yes,  they  elevate  him  more  than  one 
can  say — much  more  than  the  memories  of  his  later  and 
more  busy  life ;  and  this  perhaps  for  these  two  reasons, 
— firstly,  that  he  thinks,  by  thus  looking  back,  to  force  his 
way  neaier  to  the  gates  of  life  guarded  by  spirits  and 
darkness ;  and,  secondly,  he  hopes  in  the  mental  power  of 
early  consciousness  to  find,  as  it  were,  an  independence 
of  this  contemptible  little  mortal  body.  I  am  glad  that 
I  am  still  able  to  recall  a  dim,  faint  recollection  of  the 
time  when  I  was  twelve  or  ar,  most  fourteen  months  old, 
like  the  first  mental  snowdrop  out  of  the  dark  soil  of 
childhood.  I  still  remember  that  one  of  the  poor  scholars 
was  very  fond  of  me,  and  that  he  used  always  to  carry  me 
about  in  his  arms — whi(;h  is  more  pleasant  than  being 
carried  on  the  hands*  in  later  life — and  used  to  give  me 
milk  to  drink  in  the  large  gloomy  room  of  the  Alumni. 
His  distant  fading  picture  and  his  love  for  me  hovered 
over  many  years.  Now  alas  !  I  know  his  nnme  no  more ; 
but  yet  it  is  possible  that  he  is  still  living,  far  on  towards 
his  seventieth  year,  and  the  wide-read  scholar  may  meet 

*  The  German  expression,  auf  den  Hdnden  tragen  (to  carry  on  the 
hands),  means  "to  treat  with  great  affection"  or  "regard."  Eichter 
was  more  sought  after  in  later  life  than  he  cared  to  be. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  13 

with  these  lectures,  and  may  then  call  to  mind  a  little 
Professor  whom  he  carried  about  and  kissed.  Ah  !  if  it 
should  be  so,  and  he  should  write — or  if  to  the  old  man 
the  older  man  should  come !  This  little  morning-star  of 
earliest  memory  still  shone  brightly  in  the  low  heaven  of 
boyhood,  but  has  grown  more  and  more  pale  the  higher 
the  daylight  of  life  h^s  risen ;  and  now  in  reality  I 
remember  only  this  one  thing  clearly,  that  I  formerly 
remembered  all  more  cleaily. 

As  my  father  had  already  received  his  appointment  as 
pastor  at  Joditz  in  the  year  1765, 1  can  the  more  exactly 
separate  the  reliquary  of  my  Wonsiedler  childhood  from 
the  early  remembrances  and  reliques  of  Joditz. 

This  village  is  the  second  scene  of  this  little  historical 
melodrama;  where,  most  honoured  ladies  and  gentlemen, 
you  will  meet  the  hero  of  the  piece  under  entirely  new 
circumstances  in  our  second  lecture;  for  each  lecture  is 
laid  in  a  new  place  of  residence.  Indeed,  the  whole  history 
of  these  lectures,  or  the  lectures  of  this  history,  are 
80  skilfully  and  successfully  aiTanged,  that  of  the  three 
usual  unities  of  an  historical  drama,  besides  the  first  one 
of  place — for  of  course  I  must  make  my  appearance  in  the 
various  places  where  I  sojourned — besides  this  one,  I  say, 
no  other  unity  but  that  of  time  is  transgressed,  for  the 
hero  from  his  entrance  into  life  to  his  entrance  on  his 
professorship,  must  always  be  passing  from  one  time  to 
another;  not  to  mention  that  while  representing  and 
acting  the  piece  he  must  offend  the  unity  of  time  by  him- 
self growing  older  ;  but  in  return  for  this  he  holds  firmly 
the  unity  of  interest  running  throughout,  which  can  hardly 
be  imagined  greater  than  it  is.  But  our  hero's  upward 
ascent  has  already  begun,  and  we  have  the  pleasure  in  our 
second  lecture  of  meeting  again,  after  two  years,  as  the 
pastor's  son,  the  historical  personage  whom  in  the  first 
we  left  as  the  son  of  a  Terzius  only  ;  for  in  1765  my  father 
was  called  to  Joditz  by  the  Baroness  von  Plotho  (a 
Bodenhausen  by  birth)  of  Zedtwitz,  the  wife  of  the  same 
Plotho  who  was  ambassador  to  Frederic  the  Only  at  the 
Imperial  Diet  of  Regensburg,  in  the  beginning  of  the  Seven 
Years'  War. 


14  JEAN   PAUi.   FRIEDRICH   EICHTER. 


SECOND  LECTUEE. 

EMBRACING   THE  PERIOD  FROM   THE   IST   OF  AUGUST,    1765,   TO 
THE   9tH  of  JANUARY,    1776 — JODITZ VILLAGE   IDYLS. 

Much  honoured  Ladies  and  Gentlemen, — You  now  in«et 
the  Professor  of  his  Autobiographical  History  iu  the  village 
of  Joditz,  whither  he  accompanied  his  parents  in  woman's 
hood  and  girl's  frock.  The  Saale,  which  took  its  rise,  like 
myself,  in  the  Fichtelgebirge,  had  followed  me  thither,  just 
as  in  later  years  it  flowed  past  Hof  when  I  went  to  live 
there.  This  river  is  the  most  beautiful,  or  at  any  rate  the 
longest,  river  in  Joditz,  flowing  round  the  town  by  the 
mountain  side.  The  village  itself  is  crossed  by  a  little 
brook,  with  a  wooden  bridge.  A  commonplace  castle  and 
parsonage  might  well  be  the  most  important  buildings 
here.  The  suburbs  were  not  more  than  twice  the  size  of 
the  village  itself,  if  one  did  not  climb  the  mountain  side ; 
and  yet  to  the  Professor  of  his  own  history  that  village  is 
of  yet  more  importance  than  the  town  of  his  birth,  for  in 
it  he  passed  the  most  important  time  of  his  life,  namely,  the 
boy-Olympiads. 

I  never  could  give  my  sympathy  to  those  nineteen  towns 
which  quarrelled  (according  to  Suidas)  for  the  honour  of 
being  the  birthplace  of  Homer,  just  as  little  as  with  those 
Dutch  places,  all  of  which  would  wish  (according  to  Bayle) 
to  have  given  birth  to  Erasmus.  What  can  there  be  of 
such  importance  in  the  first  day  before  or  after  nine  months. 

At  the  place  of  the  grave  the  inhabitants  might  have 
more  share  in  the  merit — and  also  in  the  blame — than  at 
the  place  of  the  cradle.  Although,  on  the  whole,  many 
princes  are  loom  in  capital  towns,  yet  London,  Paris, 
Berlin  and  Vienna  are  not  proud  of  this ;  for  if  they  were, 
then,  by  converse  reasoning,  would  all  those  towns  and 
villages  where  great  rogues  have  been  born  have  to  be 
ashamed.  The  birth-lands  might,  at  the  most,  be  allowed 
to  presume  on  the  honour  of  the  birth- towns  in  theiQ,  if 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  15 

any  favourable  judgment  could  be  formed  of  their  climate 
or  inhabitants  on  account  of  their  number  of  notable  births ; 
but  one  Pindar  in  Boeotia  does  not  make  a  swallow-summer 
of  it. 

The  real  native  town,  namely,  the  mental  one,  is  the 
place  where  the  education  begins  and  continues  longest; 
and  if  it  is  so  for  world-renowned  men,  who  seldom  need 
education  and  seldom  make  use  of  it,  how  much  more  is 
it  so  for  village-  and  town-renowned,  mediocre  men,  like 
my  hero,  who  gained  so  much  his  from  bringing-up  and 
spoiling,  and  who,  by  means  of  both,  combined  with  his 
readings  (which  is  only  a  more  extensive  educating  and 
spoiling  institution),  has  really  become  that  which  he 
now  is — a  Councillor-of-Embassy  of  Hildburghausen,  a 
Heidelburg  Doctor  of  Philosophy,  a  threefold  Member  of 
various  Societies,  and  the  present  unworthy  Possessor  of 
this  Autohistorical  Professorship. 

Let  no  poet,  I  pray,  get  himself  bom  and  reared  in  a 
Capital ;  but  rather,  if  possible,  in  a  village,  or,  at  most,  in 
a  small  town.  The  super-abundance  and  over-fascination 
of  a  large  town  are  to  the  delicate,  excitable,  young  soul 
a  feasting  at  dessert,  a  drinking  of  burning  spirits,  a 
bathing  in  glowing  wine.  Life  is  exhausted  in  him  during 
boyhood ;  and  after  the  greatest  he  has  nothing  left  for 
which  to  wish,  but  that  which  at  any  rate  is  smaller, 
namely,  the  village.  One  does  not  gain  or  acquire  so  much  in 
coming  from  the  town  to  the  village,  as  vice  versa, — from 
Joditz  to  Hof.  Consider,  too,  that  most  important  element 
for  poets — Love.  In  the  town  he  must  draw  around  the 
torrid  zone  of  his  parents,  friends,  and  acquaintance,  the 
larger  temperate  and  frigid  zones  of  unloved  men,  who 
pass  by  him  unknown,  and  for  whom  he  is  as  little  able  to 
kindle  and  warm  his  love  as  is  a  ship's  crew  in  meeting 
and  passing  another  vessel. 

But  in  a  village  one  loves  the  whole  population  :  no 
babe  is  buried  but  each  one  knows  its  name,  its  illness, 
and  the  mourning  it  has  called  forth.  The  inhabitants  of 
Joditz  thus  lived  and  grew  into  one  another ;  and  this 
glorious  sympathy  for  every  one  in  the  form  of  a  man, 
which  thus  extends  even  to  the  stranger  and  the  beggar, 
gives  birth  to  a  >olid  love  for  mankind  and  to  the  right 


16  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH    PJCHTER. 

pulsation  of  the  heart.  And  then,  when  the  poet  wanders 
forth  from  his  village,  he  brings  to  each  whom  he  meets 
a  portion  of  his  heart,  and  he  will  have  far  to  travel 
ere  he  has  thus  spent  the  whole  of  it  among  the  streets 
and  alleys. 

Undoubtedly,  there  is  a  still  greater  misfortune  than 
that  of  being  reared  in  a  metropolis ;  namely,  the  being 
reared  on  the  road,  like  a  child  of  the  aristocracy,  which 
journeys  for  years  amid  strange  towns  and  people,  and 
knows  no  other  home  than  the  travelling-coach. 

We  now  come  again  to  the  pastor's  son,  whose  life  in 
Joditz,  I  think,  I  shall  best  represent  to  you  if  I  pass  it 
before  you  by-and-by,  in  one  complete  year  of  Idyls.  But 
first,  like  mist,  let  that  precede  which  does  not  belong  to 
the  bright  days ;  the  mist  is  the  instruction  I  received, 
which,  however,  was  not  till  after  ten  years.  Learning  of 
all  sorts  was  life  to  me,  and  I  would  gladly  have  submitted 
myself,  prince-like,  to  the  instruction  of  half-a-dozen  tutors ; 
but  I  scarcely  had  one  proper  one.  Still  do  I  remember 
the  delight  of  that  winter-evening  when  I  received  into  my 
hand  the  A,  B,  C  book  from  the  town,  with  the  pencil  to 
serve  as  pointer  attached  to  it,  on  the  cover  of  which  were 
written  (not  without  right)  in  real  gold  letters,  the  contents 
of  the  first  page,  which  consisted  of  alternate  red  and  black 
letters  :  a  gambler  derives  less  ecstacy  before  his  gold  and 
rouge  et  noir  than  I  did  before  mine  from  that  book  whose 
pencil  even  I  did  not  once  stake. 

After  this, — when  I  had  taken  enough  private  instruc- 
tion, with  my  inner  Privatissima  as  master,  to  pass 
through  the  lowest  classes  of  the  school, — I  was  taken  in 
a  green  taffeta  cap,  but  already  in  short  trousers  (for 
which  the  schoolmistress  openly  supplemented  my  weak 
little  fingers)  to  the  high  school  that  is,  the  school 
which  stood  opposite  the  parsonage,  and  there  with  the 
pencil  I  recited  my  letters  to  them  all.  As  usual,  I  became 
fond  of  every  living  thing  in  the  school,  and,  most  of  all, 
of  the  thin,  consumptive,  but  cheerful  schoolmaster ;  whose 
anxiety  I  always  shared  when  on  the  watch  for  an  unwary 
goldfinch  behind  the  finch-trap  which  stood  outside  his 
window,  or  when  he  was  about  to  throw  the  draw-net 
over  the  yellow-hammers  on  the  fowling-floor  out  in  the 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  17 

Bnow.  In  the  Greenland  winter-closeness  of  the  crowded 
schoolroom,  I  remember  still,  with  pleasure,  the  long  linen 
stoppers  which  were  stujfted  into  small  air-holes  bored  in 
the  wall,  and  which  one  only  needed  to  draw  out  to  receive 
into  the  open  mouth  a  refreshing  stream  of  frosty  air  from 
outside. 

Each  fresh  letter  which  the  schoolmaster  gave  me 
to  write  rein vigora ted  me — as  a  picture  would  others — 
and  I  envied  the  rest  for  reciting  their  lessons,  for  I  would 
fain  have  enjoyed  the  bliss  of  spelling  as  well  as  of  singing 
in  chorus. 

Was  it  twelve  o'clock  and  dinner  not  yet  ready,  there 
was  then  nothing  left  to  be  wished  for  by  me  and  my 
brother  Adam  (who  is  now  dead).  For  although  he  was 
much  fonder  ot"  a  bird's  nest  than  of  a  whole  colony  of 
muses,  we  flew  to  the  schoolroom,  carrying  our  hunger 
with  us — putting  off  the  appeasing  of  it  until  later — in 
order  not  to  lose  a  minute.  People  made  much  of  this 
knowledge-craving  self-sacrifice,  but  I  remember  very  well 
that  the  common  childish  inclination  to  es  aije  from  the 
regular  daily  round  had  most  of  all  to  do  with  it.  We 
wanted  to  have  our  dinners  a  few  hours  later,  just  as  on 
fast-days  and  repentance-days  we  always  looked  forward 
to  the  late  dinners.  When  all  in  the  house  is  in  a  state 
of  confusion  on  account  of  white-washing,  for  example, 
or  perhaps  from  moving  to  another  house,  or  from  the 
arrival  of  several  guests,  then  the  little  human  fools  are 
at  their  zenith  of  delight. 

Unluckily  I  shut  to  myself  for  ever  the  schoolroom  door, 
by  an  untimely  complaint  to  my  father  about  a  big  peasant 
lad  (Zah  was  his  name — that  posterity  may  know  it),  who 
had  struck  me  on  the  knuckles  with  his  clasp-knife.  In 
proud  anger,  my  father  henceforth  gave  my  brothers  and 
myself  our  instruction  alone,  and  every  winter  I  had  to 
see  the  children  over  the  way  sailing  into  the  harbour  which 
was  closed  to  me.  But  stiil  I  had  left  to  me  the  little  by- 
pleasure  of  carrying  over  to  the  schoolmaster  the  frequent 
bulls  and  decrees  of  his  village  pope,  and  the  Christmas 
gifts  or  presents  from  the  newly-killed  ])ig,  or  any  other 
little  plateful  of  eatables  in  place  of  the  Komish  Atjnua  Dei 
or  the  consecrated  roses  and  baby-napkins. 

I.  c 


18  JEAN  PAUL  FKIEDRICH  EICHTER. 

Four  hours  before  and  three  hours  after  dinner  our 
father  used  to  give  us  our  lessons,  which  consisted 
entirely  of  learning  by  rote — verses,  catechism,  Latin 
words,  and  Lange's  grammar.  We  had  to  learn  the  long 
rules  of  the  genders  for  each  declension,  together  with 
the  exceptions  and  the  adjoined  Latin  examples,  without 
understanding  a  word  of  it  all.  If  on  a  bright  summer 
day  my  father  went  into  the  country,  we  got  some  such 
confounded  exceptions  as  panis  and  piscis  to  learn  for  the 
next  morning ;  but  my  brother  Adam,  for  whom  the  whole 
day  hardly  sufficed  fcT  his  frolics  and  games  of  all  kinds, 
seldom  had  an  eighth  part  of  them  left  in  his  head,  fo" 
it  was  not  often  that  he  was  lucky  enough  to  get  such 
delightful  words  to  decline  as  scamnum,  or,  better  still, 
cornu,  in  the  singular,  of  which  he  could  at  any  rate  say 
the  Latin  half.  Believe  me,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  it  was 
no  easy  matter,  on  a  bright  June  day,  when  the  all- 
powerful  ruler  was  not  at  home,  to  arrest  and  imprison 
oneself  in  a  corner,  there  to  stamp  and  impress  two  or 
three  pages  of  words  into  one's  head  ;  on  a  bright  summer- 
day,  I  say,  it  was  no  easy  matter — but  it  was  harder  still 
on  a  short,  snowy  one  in  December ;  and  you  must  not  be 
surprised  that  my  brother  on  this  account  always  carried 
away  a  few  stripes  after  such  days.  The  Professor  of  his 
own  history  can,  however,  make  this  general  declaration, — 
that  never  throughout  his  whole  school-life  was  he  flogged 
either  in  part  or  completely ;  the  Professor  always  knew 
his  part. 

But  let  not  this  rote-learning  system  throw  a  false 
light  on  my  indefatigable  and  loving  father,  who  would 
sacrifice  the  whole  day  in  writing  out  and  committing  to 
memory  the  sermons  for  his  country  parishioners,  merely 
from  overstrict  conscientiousness,  as  several  times  he  had 
had  proofs  of  his  extempore  eloquence;  my  good  father, 
who,  in  his  weekly  visits  to  the  schoolroom  and  in  his 
doubling  the  public  instruction  for  children,  and  in  all 
other  things  exceeded  his  duty  by  self-sacrifice,  and  who 
gave  his  tender,  warm,  fatherly  heart  chiefly  to  me, 
and  who  would  break  out  into  joyful  tears  over  any  little 
signs  of  talent  and  progress  in  me.  In  the  whole  of  his 
jducational  system  he  committed  no  other  faults,  however 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  19 

strange  are  some  which  may  occur,  than  those  of  the  head 
— none  of  the  will. 

This  method  is  to  be  recommended  to  the  regular  school- 
master, for  by  no  other  is  so  much  time  and  trouble 
spared  as  by  this  really  convenient  one,  by  which  the 
pupil  gains  in  his  book  a  vicarius  or  adjunctus  of  the 
teacher,  or  his  curator  ahsentis,  and  magnetises  himself  like 
a  powerful  clairvoyant.  Yes,  this  mental  self-nourishing 
of  children  is  capable  of  such  extension,  that  I  myself 
would  undertake  to  superintend,  through  the  letter-post, 
a  whole  school  in  North  America,  or  fifty  days'  journey 
distant  in  the  old  world,  merely  by  writing  to  my  school- 
children what  they  were  to  learn  each  day,  and  keeping 
some  or  other  insignificant  person  there  to  whom  they 
should  repeat  it,  while  I  myself  would  enjoy  the  con- 
sciousness of  their  beautiful  intellectual  reminiscere*  Lenten 
Sunday. 

In  Speccius  I  translated,  by  order,  a  good  deal  at  the 
begining  into  Latin  with  that  pleasure  with  which  I 
climbed  onto  and  stripped  each  fresh  branch  of  learning. 
I  turned  the  latter  half  into  Latin  by  myself,  but  was 
unable  to  find  anyone  to  correct  the  mistakes.  1  divined 
the  meaning  of  the  Colloquia  (conversations)  in  Lange's 
grammar  from  longing  to  know  what  they  were  about, 
but  in  Joditz  my  fatner  did  not  allow  me  to  translate 
anything.  The  Greek  alphabet  I  studied  hungrily  and 
thirstily,  in  a  Greek  grammar  written  in  Latin,  and  at  the 
end  I  wrote  Greek  fairly — that  is,  as  far  as  the  handwriting 
was  concerned.  How  willingly  would  1  have  learned 
more,  and  how  easily.  If  the  body  did  not,  yet  the  spirit 
of  a  language  easily  entered  into  me,  as  the  third  lecture 
of  this  winter  half-year  will,  i  daresay,  best  show  to  tht; 
world. 

Once  only,  on  a  winter's  afternoon — I  might  be  from 
eight  to  nine  years  old — when  my  father  was  going  to 
study  a  little  La*in  vocabulary  book  with  me,  that  is,  was 
going  to  set  me  to  learn  it  by  heart,  and  I  had  to  read  the 
first  page  over  to  him ; — I  read  the  word  lingua,  in  spite  of 

•  The  reminigcere  Sunday  is  the  second  Sunday  in  Lent.  As  people 
on  that  day  are  to  recall  the  sufferings  of  Clirbt,  so  here  the  pupils  arc 
to  reoall  to  their  memories  the  lessons  which  they  hare  learned.— Tr. 

c  2 


20  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDEICH   RICHTER. 

his  corrections,  not  lingwa,  but  always  lin-gua ;  and  repeated 
the  same  mistake,  regardless  of  all  corrections,  so  often,  that 
he  became  infuriated,  and  in  angry  impatience  deprived 
me  of  the  vocabulary  book  and  its  instruction  for  ever.  I 
am  still  unable  to  this  day  to  get  to  the  bottom  of  this 
obstinate  stupidity ;  but  my  heart  was  not  influenced — 
this  it  has  alwaj^s  said  to  me  throughout  my  life — by  any 
ill- temper,  as,  indeed,  it  never  was  and  certainly  would  not 
have  been  in  this  case,  towards  the  father,  who  by  a  new 
lesson-book  had  just  offered  me  a  fresh  boyish  pleasure. 
This  historical  feature  has,  however,  been  intentionally 
related  in  this  hall,  in  order  that  the  impartiality  of  the 
historical  researcher  and  Professor  may  be  proved  by  those 
shadows  which  he  points  out,  while  acknowledging  a  hero 
whom  he  otherwise  likes  to  display  in  the  brightest  light. 
But  how  often  is  it  in  life  that  poor  innocent  men,  not 
understood  and  misunderstood,  say  lin-gua  instead  of  the 
more  correct  lingwa,  and  that,  too,  with  the  tongue  {lingua) 
which  at  the  same  time  means  language  (lingua). 

With  history,  too, — both  ancient  and  modern — natural 
history,  besides  the  most  important  facts  of  geography, 
arithmetic,  astronomy,  and  orthography — with  all  these 
branches  of  knowledge  I  became  quite  sufftciently  ac- 
quainted ;  but  not  in  Joditz — where  1  got  on  very  well 
for  twelve  years  without  a  word  of  them — but  many  years 
afterwards,  when  I  acquired  them  piecemeal  from  the 
Allgemeine  Bibliotheh.  All  the  more  ardent  Wi*s  my  thirst 
for  books  in  this  intellectual  Sahara.  Each  one  was 
a  fresh  green  oasis,  especially  the  Orhis  Pictus  and  the 
Gesprdche  im  Beiche  der  Todten ;  but  my  father's  library, 
like  many  another  open  one,  was  seldom  open  ;  except  when 
he  was  not  at  home  and  in  it.  At  any  rate,  I  often  lay  on 
the  flat  top  of  a  wooden  grating  (like  a  magnified  wild- 
beast  cage),  and  crept  upon  books,  like  the  great  jurist 
Baldus,  in  order  to  get  one  for  myself.  Let  any  one  only 
consider:  in  a  village  destitute  of  people,  in  a  solitary 
parsonage,  for  such  a  listening  soul  books  must  have  been 
speaking  beings,  wealthy  foreign  guests,  Maecenases,  tra- 
velling princes,  and  inhabitants  of  the  new  world  or  the 
first  Americans  for  a  European. 

It  is  true  that  I,  as  an  A-B-C-historian,  did  not  in  the  least 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  21 

understand  the  quarto  volume  of  Gesprdche  im  Reiclie  der 
Todten,  but  I  read  it  as  I  also  did  the  newspaper,  though 
only  an  A-B-C-geographer  also,  and  could  retail  much  in- 
formation from  both  of  them.  I  used  to  relate  portions  of 
the  former  to  my  father  — one  evening,  the  love-story 
of  Roxana  and  the  Turkish  emperor,  which  I  had  read 
during  his  absence, — without  his  disapprobation,  and  I 
did  the  same  for  my  newspaper  extracts  with  an  old 
Baroness  whom  we  knew.  My  father  used  to  have  the 
Baireuth  paper  given  him  by  his  patroness,  the  Baroness 
Plotho  of  Zedtwitz ;  every  month  or  quarter — as  often  as 
he  went  to  Zedtwitz — he  brought  the  monthly  or  quarterly 
numbers  home  altojz;ether,  and  he  and  X  read  this  huge 
pile  with  profit,  just  because  we  got  them  more  as  volumes 
than  as  single  sheets.  A  political  paper  supplies  one  with 
true  information,  when  it  is  read,  not  in  separate  sheets, 
but  in  monthly  numbers  or  in  volumes ;  because,  in  the 
compass  of  a  comiDlete  part,  it  has  collected  a  sufficient 
number  of  sheets  to  counteract  each  other ;  like  the  air, 
it  cannot  at  once  show  its  colour  in  single  puffs  and 
blows,  but  only  in  its  whole  extent,  as  the  said  air, 
shows  its  sky-blue  colour  only  when  in  a  large  mass.  Of  a 
morning  I  usually  carried  my  news-atlas  over  to  the  castle 
to  the  old  Frau  von  Reitzenstein,  and  expounded  at  the 
coffee-table  this  or  that  portion  of  news  which  I  had 
brought  with  me,  and  listened  to  my  own  praises.  I  still 
remember  a  plural  word,  "  Confdderirte,"  which  occurred 
frequently  at  that  time.  Most  probably  this  plural  was 
in  Poland,  but  I  cannot  recollect  that  I  took  the  slightest 
interest  in  it,  probably  because  I  understood  nothing  about 
the  matter.  Thus  calmly  and  impartially  were  the  Polish 
affairs  judged  in  our  village,  as  well  by  mo  as  by  the  old 
Frau  von  Reitzenstein,  my  auditress. 

The  fibres  of  our  hero's  mind,  thirsting  for  knowledge, 
forced  and  curved  themselves  about  in  all  directions  to 
get  a  hold  and  suck  in  nourishment.  He  manufactured 
clocks,  of  which  the  faces  were  the  most  successful  part, 
and  which  had  a  pendulum,  one  wheel,  and  a  weight,  and 
which  stood  well.  A  sun-dial  too  he  devised,  by  marking 
a  dial-face  in  ink  on  a  wooden  plate,  and  then  sotting  the 
dial-pin  >/  the  church  clock,  and  fixing  it  there ;  thus  ho 


22  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDKICH   KICUTEE. 

frequently  knew  what  time  it  was.  He  liked  best  tc 
make  the  figures, — as  many  States  do,  — on  the  clock  faces, 
and  that,  too,  beforehand  ;  and  like  Lichtenberg,  who  made 
the  title  ])cfore  the  book.  The  present  author  showed 
in  miniature  a  cardboard  box,  in  which  he  arranged  a 
iiminutive  library  of  16mo  books  made  from  the  margins 
of  his  father's  8vo  sermons,  which  he  sewed  together  and 
cut  into  shape.  The  contents  were  theological  and  pro- 
iestant,  and  consisted  in  every  case  of  short  explanatory 
notes  on  verses  copied  from  Luther's  Bible;  the  verses 
themselves  he  omitted  in  his  little  book.  Thus  in  our 
Friedrich  Eichter,  there  already  lay  a  little  Friedrich 
von  Schlegel,  who,  in  just  the  same  way  in  his  extract 
"  Lessing's  Geist,"  picked  out  Lessing's  opinion  on  cer- 
tain authors,  but  was  not  particular  to  state  the  passages 
themselves. 

In  the  same  way  our  hero  threw  himself  into  the  art  of 
painting  also ;  many  a  mounted  Potentate  sat,  or  rather 
lay,  to  him  while  he  traced  round  his  features  with  a  fork 
in  such  a  way  that  a  piece  of  paper  underneath,  covered 
with  grease  and  soot,  and  with  the  reverse  side  down- 
wards, left  striking  likenesses  of  them  printed  on  a  sheet 
of  white  paper  under  it.  That,  under  sunnier  circumstances, 
he  might  have  unfolded  into  a  second  Kaphael  Mengs, 
who,  unlike  the  first  one,  had  to  be  whipped  from  his 
painting,  not  to  it,  I  hardly  think  at  present,  however 
brightly  coloured  the  first  white  and  red  balls,  the  square 
red  bricks,  the  rounded  slate  pencil,  and  the  splendid 
colour-shells  in  the  paint-box,  and  the  green  rose-beetles 
may  still  shine  in  my  memory;  and  though  something 
may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  on  the  receipt  of  a 
paint-box,  he  coloured  the  whole  of  the  Orhis  Picius  after 
life ;  the  supposition  would  only  be  a  little  more  correct, 
than  if  one  should  predict  a  great  financial  correspondent 
from  his  skill  in  making  herrings  in  winter.  This  art  of 
his,  of  supplying  herrings  on  the  land  at  such  a  distance 
from  the  sea-coast,  was  as  follows  :  when  he  had  to  go  for 
the  bread,  he  would  wade  in  the  brook  and  would  there 
gently  raise  one  of  the  stones  under  which  a  grundel,  or 
any  other  still  smaller  fish,  was  to  be  caught.  He  then  put 
these  into  a  hollow  cabbage-stalk  (this   represented  the 


AUTOBIOGRArHY.  23 

herring-tun),  and  duly  salted  them ;  and  as  soon  as  the 
little  tun  was  full,  he  would  have  had  herrings  to  eat, 
had  not  they  all  smelt  so  badly.  Not  more  suitable,  but 
rather  less  so,  when  considered  as  precursors  of  a  youthful 
financial  correspondent,  would  be  such  surrogate  con- 
trivances as  the  following,  viz.,  that  he  served  up  the 
halves  of  dried  pears  for  little  hams,  and  pigeons'  feet,  cut 
off  and  roasted  in  a  potsherd,  for  a  complete  dinner,  or 
that  he  drove  snails  to  pasture.  In  fact,  any  future 
historical  investigator  of  the  present  historical  investiga- 
tor, would  be  considered  by  me  to  be  in  the  highest 
degree  ridiculous,  who  should  wish  to  deduce  anything 
extraordinary  by  selecting  such  fragmentary  pieces  as 
are  scattered  throughout  the  childhood  of  anyone  else ; 
the  foolish  man  would  seem  to  me  just  like  that  Parisian 
quack,  who,  with  the  assistance  of  a  Jesuit,  fitted  together 
some  elephant  bones,  and  sold  them  as  the  true  skeleton 
of  the  German  giant,  Teutobach.  The  beard  does  not 
make  a  philosopher,  though  it  may  make  a  sailor  or  a 
malefactor,  when  they  come  from  the  ship  or  prison 
with  it,  because,  while  there,  they  do  not  come  under  the 
barber's  razor. 

As  the  boundless  activity  of  our  hero  threw  itself  more 
into  intellectual  than  bodily  exercises — all  of  which, 
however,  he  followed  with  indescribable  avidity,  he 
invented,  not  new  languages,  but  new  letters.  He  took 
the  symbols  of  the  calendar,  or  geometrical  signs  from  an 
old  book,  and  chemical  ones  or  the  latest  ones  out  of  his 
own  head,  and,  by  putting  them  together,  made  himself  a 
new  alphabet  out  of  them.  When  this  was  done,  the  next 
thing  was  to  make  some  use  of  his  alphabetical  solitaire^ 
by  clothing  in  it  a  few  pages  of  copied  matter.  In  this 
way  ho  was  his  own  secret  writer,  and  a  player  at  hide- 
and-seek  with  himself;  but  he  could,  too,  without  peeping 
into  Biittner's  Comparative  Tables  of  Written  Characters, 
read  off  his  new  ones  on  the  spot  as  easily  as  ordinary 
ones,  because  he  had  placed  the  latter,  like  a  warrant  of 
apprehension,  letter  for  letter,  ULder  the  secret  ones,  and 
only  needed  to  refer  to  them.  This  time  one  c^uld 
perhaps  blame  the  so-called  historical  investigator  less, 
if  he  would  see  the  foundation  of  a  Councillor-of-Em 


24  JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDEICH  EICHTER. 

bassy,  or  of  an  ambassador  himself,  in  this  ciphering  and 
deciphering,  which,  so  early  as  this,  songht  merit  less  in 
the  contents  than  in  the  external  clothing  of  them.  I  have, 
in  fact,  since  then  acquired  the  character  of  a  Councillor- 
:-f-Embassy,  and  I  could  do  a  bit  of  ciphering  to  this  day. 

My  soul,  perhaps  taking  after  that  of  my  father,  was 
thoroughly  open  to  music,  and  for  it  I  had  a  hundred 
Argus-ears.  When  the  schoolmaster  played  the  church- 
goers out  with  his  final  cadenzas,  my  whole  little  being 
laughed  and  skipped  with  joy,  as  in  the  spring-time ;  or 
on  the  morning  after  the  night  dancing  at  the  Kirchweihe 
(at  which  my  father  used  to  send  loud  thunders  of  ex- 
communication on  the  Sunday  following),  when,  to  his 
vexation,  the  foreign  musicians,  together  with  the  be- 
ribboned  village  youths  drew  up  in  front  of  the  parsonage 
with  their  shawms  and  fiddles,  then  I  would  climb  on  to 
the  yard  wall,  and  a  world  of  jubilation  sounded  through 
my  yet  small  breast  and  the  spring-time  of  pleasure 
played  therein  with  the  spring,  and  I  thought  not  a  word 
of  my  father's  sermons.  I  devoted  hours,  on  an  old  untuned 
piano,  whose  only  tuning-hammer  and  tuning-master 
was  the  weather,  to  my  fantasias,  which  certainly  were 
freer  than  the  most  daring  in  the  whole  of  Europe,  as  I 
knew  neither  note  nor  chord  nor  anything  else ;  for  my 
father,  though  such  a  finished  player,  had  shown  me 
neither  note  nor  key. 

But  when  by  chance  I  hit  at  times  on  a  short  melody  or 
harmony  of  three  to  six  notes — like  some  good  modern 
composer  of  tunes  for  rope-dancing,  witch-dancing,  or 
finger-dancing  on  the  piano  strings  — then  I  was  indeed  a 
happy  being,  and  repeated  my  finger-hit  as  everlastingly 
as  any  good  modern  German  poet  repeats  the  brain-hit  with 
which  he  gained  his  first  applause.  Heliogabalus  con- 
demned the  cook  who  made  him  some  bad  broth  to  eat 
nothing  else  but  it  until  he  had  discovered  a  better  one ; 
but  the  poet,  on  the  other  hand,  acting  more  generously, 
treats  the  reading  world  to  an  excellent  broth  at  so  many 
a  Leipzig  book-fair,  that  at  last  it  tastes  as  stale  as  the 
bad  broth  of  the  emperor's  cook. 

In  the  future  literary  history  of  our  hero,  it  will  become 
doubtful  whether  he  was  not  perhaps  born  for  philosophy 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  25 

rather  than  poetry.     In  earliest  times  the  word  "  philo- 
sophy"— though  there  was  also  a  second  word,  "  orient"' — 
was  to  me  an  open  Heaven's  gate,  through  which  I  looked 
onto  long,  long  gardens  of  joy.     Never  shall  I  forget  the 
inner    sensation,    hitherto  untold    to  any,    when    I    was 
present  at  the  birth  of  my  self- consciousness,  of  which  I  , 
can  specify  both  time  and  place.     One  morning,  when  still  j 
quite  a  young  child,  I  was  standing  under  the  doorway,  1 
and   looking  towards   the  woodstack  on  the   left,  when  j 
suddenly  the  internal  vision,  "  I  am  an  ego,''  passed  before  1 
me  like  a  lightning  flash  from  heaven,  and  has  remained  ' 
with  me  shining  brightly  ever  since, ;  my  ego  had  seen 
itself  then  for  the  first  time  and  for  ever.     Deceptions  of 
the  memory  are  here  hardly  conceivable,  since  no  story 
related  to  me  could  mingle  its  additions  with  an  occur- 
rence which  took  place  in  the  shrouded  Holy-of-Holies  of 
a  human  being,  and  whose  strangeness  alone  has  given  per- 
manence to  such  everyday  circumstances  as  those  which 
accompanied  it. 

In  order  to  represent  most  truthfully  the  Joditz  life  of 
niir  Hans  Paul  (for  so  we  will  call  him  for  a  time,  alwa.vs 
however  subject  to  change  with  other  names),  we  shall  do 
best,  I  think,  if  we  conduct  it  through  a  complete  year  of 
Idyls,  breaking  up  the  normal  year  into  four  seasons,  like 
so  many  Idylic  quarters :  four  Idyls  exhaust  his  happiness. 

Let  none  wonder  at  an  Idylic  kingdom  and  an  Arcadian 
world  in  a  little  hamlet  and  its  parsonage.  In  the 
smallest  flower-bed  one  can  rear  a  tulip-tree  which  will 
stretch  its  flowery  branches  over  the  whole  garden ;  and 
the  life-giving  air  can  be  inhaled  as  well  at  the  window 
as  in  the  wide  wood  under  the  open  sky.  Nay,  is  not  the 
man's  spirit  itself  (with  all  its  infinite  heavenly  courts')  con- 
fined in  a  body  five  feet  high,  with  membranes,  Malpighian 
glands  and  capillaries,  and  having  only  the  five  narrow 
windows  of  the  senses  to  open  on  that  immense  round-eyed, 
round-sunned — All  ? — and  yet  it  sees  and  reproduces  an  All. 

I  hardly  know  with  which  of  the  four  Idylic  quarters 
to  begin ;  for  each  is  a  little  fore-heaven  of  the  next ;  but, 
I  think,  on  the  whole,  the  progression  of  happiness  will 
beet  appear  if  we  begin  with  Winter  and  January. 

In  the  cold  weather  my  father,  like  the  Swiss  flocks, 


26  JEAN   PAUL   FEIEDRICH   EICHTER. 

was  "brought  down  from  tlie  heights  of  his  study  upstairs, 
and,  to  the  joy  of  the  children,  sojourned  in  the  plain  ot 
the  parlour.  In  the  morning  he  sat  in  the  window- 
corner,  committing  his  Sunday  sermon  to  memory,  while 
his  three  sons — Fritz,  that  is  myself,  Adam,  and  Gottlieb 
(for  Heiurich  did  not  come  until  near  the  end  of  the 
Joditz  Idylic  life),  carried  the  full  coffee-cup  to  him  by 
tui  ns,  in  order  to  enjoy  the  greater  pleasure  of  bringing 
back  the  empty  one,  as  the  bearer  was  allowed  to  take 
out  the  unmelted  candy-sugar  which  he  used  as  a  remedy 
for  his  cough.  Out  of  doors  truly  all  was  wrapped  in 
silence :  the  brook  by  the  ice,  the  village  by  the  snow;  but 
in  our  room  there  was  life — a  dovecote  under  the  stove, 
siskin  and  goldfinch  cages  at  the  windows,  the  invincible 
bull-dog,  our  Bonne  and  night-watcher  of  the  parsonage, 
on  the  floor,  besides  a  Spitzbergen  dog  and  the  pretty 
Scharmantel,  a  present  from  the  Frau  von  Plotho — and, 
next  door  to  us,  the  kitchen  with  two  maids  in  it ;  and  in 
addition  to  these,  at  the  farther  end  of  the  house,  the 
stable,  with  all  possible  kinds  of  cattle,  pigs  and  feathered 
things,  with  their  accompanying  noises ;  the  threshers 
too,  with  their  flails,  at  work  in  the  courtyard,  I  might  add 
to  the  number.  Thus  surrounded  by  noisy  society,  the 
whole  masculine  portion  of  the  parlour  passed  the  morning 
in  learning,  in  close  proximity  to  the  cooking  of  the 
feminine  portion. 

No  business  in  the  world  is  without  its  holidays,  and 
so  I  too  had  the  fresh-air  holidays — like  mineral  spring 
holidays — of  being  allowed  to  go  out  in  the  snow  into  the 
yard,  and  to  the  threshing-floor.  And  when,  too,  any  im- 
portant verbal  business  had  to  be  transacted  in  the  village, 
at  the  schoolmaster's,  for  instance,  or  the  tailor's,  I  was 
sent  off  in  the  midst  of  my  lessons,  and  thus  got  out  into 
the  free  and  cold  air  and  could  measure  myself  with  the 
newly  fallen  snow.  At  noon,  too,  before  our  dinner-time, 
we  children  had  the  hungry  satisfaction  of  seeing  the 
threshers  fall- to  and  devour  theirs  in  the  kitchen. 

The  afternoon  again  was  still  more  important  and  richer 
in  joys.  Winter  shortened  and  sweetened  the  lesson  hours. 
In  the  long  twilight  our  father  walked  to  and  fro,  and 
we  children,  holding  his  hand,  trotted  as  well  as  we  could 


AUTOBIOGEAPHT.  27 

under  his  dressing-gown.  At  the  tolling  of  the  vesper 
bell  all  arranged  themselves  in  a  circle,  and  with  one  voice 
sang  the  hymn,  Die  finstre  Nachi  hricht  stark  herein.  Only 
in  villages — not  in  to'^^^as,  where  there  is  in  reality  more 
night-  than  day-work — is  there  a  meaning  and  beauty  in 
this  evening  tolling,  this  swan-song  of  the  dying  day; 
the  vesper  bell  is,  as  it  were,  a  muffler  to  our  over-loud 
hearts,  and,  like  the  Manz  des  VacJies  of  the  plain,  it  calls 
men  from  their  toils  and  troubles  to  the  land  of  quiet  and 
dreams.  After  a  pleasant  watching  for  the  moonrise  ot 
the  tallow  candle  under  the  kitchen-door,  our  large  room 
was  at  once  lighted  up  and  barricaded,  that  is,  the  shutters 
were  put  in  and  bolted,  and  the  children  felt  themselves 
safe  behind  these  window  breastworks  and  ramparts,  and 
secured  against  the  Knecht  BuprecJit,  who  could  not  now  get 
in,  but  could  only  grumble  harmlessly  outside. 

This,  too,  was  the  time  when  we  children  were  allowed 
to  undress  and  hop  about  in  our  long,  trailing  night-gowns. 
Idylic  joys  of  all  sorts  alternated  with  one  another. 

My  father  either  entered  in  an  interleaved  quarto  Bible, 
opposite  to  each  verse,  the  reference  to  any  book  in  which 
he  had  read  anything  concerning  it,  or  else,  as  was  more 
frequently  the  case,  he  had  his  ruled  folio  copying  book 
before  him,  and  composed  complete  oratorios  of  church- 
music  in  full  score,  undisturbed  by  the  children's  din  :  in 
both  cases,  but  in  the  latter  with  most  pleasure,  I  watched 
the  writing  and  was  particularly  delighted  when  whole 
pages  were  quickly  filled  by  the  pausing  of  several  of  the 
instruments.  He  composed  his  internal  melodies  quite  ^^ 
without  help  from  external  notes, — as  Eeichard  recom-  X 
mended — and  in  harmony  undisturbed  by  the  noise  of  th^^ 
children.  We  all  sat  playing  at  the  long  wiiting  and 
dining  table — and  also  under  it.  Among  the  pleasures 
which  sink  for  ever  with  the  beautiful  time  of  childhood 
is  this  one,  that  sometimes,  when  a  severe  frost  set  in, 
the  long  table  was  pushed  up  to  the  bench  by  the  stove 
for  the  sake  of  the  warmth ;  we  children  were  on  the 
watch  for  this  joyful  event  the  whole  winter.  Now,  round 
the  ill-shaped  coach-like  stove  were  two  wooden  benches, 
and  our  gain  was  that  we  could  sit  or  run  on  them,  and 
that  M*e  had  stove-summer  close  to  us  even  at  meal  times. 


28  JEAN   PAUL   FKIEDRICH  EICHTEE. 

But  what  a  climax  of  worth  did  the  winter  evenings 
reach  once  a  week,  when  the  old  errand-woman  arrived  in 
the  kitchen  covered  with  snow,  and  carrying  her  basket  of 
meat,  fruit,  and  other  provisions  from  the  town ;  and  we 
all  had  the  distant  town  in  miniature  before  our  eyes  in 
the  room,  and  before  our  noses  by  means  of  the  butter- 
cakes. 

In  the  earlier  part  of  childhood  a  pleasure-dessert  was 
allowed  by  our  father  of  a  winter  evening,  after  the  eaidy 
suppers.  The  farm-maid  served  it  up  at  her  distaff  in  the 
kitchen,  with  as  much  illumination  as  the  pine-splinters 
could  give,  which  from  time  to  time  we  stuck  lighted  into 
the  pine-stick,  as  they  did  in  Westphalia.  On  this  dessert- 
table  stood — besides  many  other  plates  of  sweetmeats  and 
folk-lore  ice-glasses,  such  as  Cinderella — the  pine-apple  ot 
a  story  of  the  maid's  own  forcing,  about  a  shepherd  and  his 
combats  with  the  wolves,  in  which  at  one  time  the  danger 
was  on  the  increase,  and  at  another  his  resources.  I  still 
feel  the  success  of  that  shepherd,  as  if  it  was  my  own,  and 
in  this  I  see,  from  my  own  experiencCy^hat  children  are 
much  more  affected  in  stories  by  the  progression  of  pro- 
sperity than  of  adversity,  and  that  they  wish  the  heavenly 
J)ath  to  lead  upwards  to  infinity,  but  the  other  one  only 
so  far  downwards  as  is  necessary  for  the  exaltation  and 
glorification  of  the  heavenly  throne.  These  children's 
wishes  become  men's  wishes,  and  we  would  more  strongly 
demand  their  fulfilment  from  the  poet,  if  a  new  heaven 
were  as  easy  to  create  as  a  new  hell.  But  any  t3^rant  can 
give  unheard-of  pains,  while  for  the  discovery  of  unheard- 
of  joys  he  himself  must  offer  prizes.  The  skin  is  the 
foundation  of  this  ;  upon  it,  inch  by  inch,  a  hundred  hells 
can  pitch  their  camps,  but  the  five  sense-heavens  hover  airy 
and  uniform  above  us. 

Only  the  end  of  the  winter  evening  contained  a  horrid 
wasp  sting,  or  vampire  tongue,  for  our  hero.  The  children, 
you  must  know,  had  to  betake  themselves  at  nine  o'clock 
to  the  guest-room,  in  the  second  floor ;  my  brothers  were 
together  in  one  room,  and  I  shared  the  guest-room  with 
my  father.  Until  he  had  finished  his  reading  downstairs, 
which  lasted  for  two  hours,  I  lay  ujd  above,  with  my  head 
under  the  bedclothes,  in  a  perspiration  for  fear  of  ghostSj 


AUT0BI0G11A.PHT.  29 

and  in  the  darlcness  I  saw  the  lightninji;  in  the  cloudy 
Spiiit-heaven,  and  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  man  himself  was 
spun  of  Spirit-caterpillars.  Every  night  I  helplessly 
suffered  thus  for  two  hours,  until  my  father  at  length  camo 
U]istairs  and  drove  away  the  ghosts,  like  a  morning  sun 
chasing  away  the  dreams.  The  next  morning  all  fear  was 
quite  forgotten,  as  if  it  had  been  a  dream,  though  it  always 
returned  again  in  the  evening.  Vet  I  have  never  said  a 
word  about  this, — except  to  the  world  this  day. 

1'his  terror  of  ghosts  was  certainly — if  not  created,  yet — 
fostered  by  my  father.  He  spared  us  not  one  of  all  the 
ghostly  apparitions  and  tricks  of  which  he  had  heard,  and 
even  on  some  occasions  believed  himself  to  have  ex- 
perienced ;  but,  like  the  old  theologians,  to  a  firm  belief  in 
them  he  joined  a  firm  courage  against  them,  and  Christ 
and  the  Cross  were  his  shield  against  the  whole  ghostly 
universe.  ]\Iany  a  child,  physically  very  timid,  displays  at 
the  same  time  great  spiritual  bravery,  but  merely  from 
lack  of  imagination  ;*  while  a  second  child,  on  the  other 
hand — like  myself — trembles  at  the  invisible  world,  because 
the  imagination  gives  it  a  visible  form,  but  easily  takes 
courage  against  the  visible,  as  that  never  reaches  the  depth 
and  height  of  the  other.  Thus  any  sudden  appearance  of 
physical  danger — for  example,  a  horse  running  away,  a 
thunder-clap,  war,  or  the  fire  alarm — made  me  only 
collected  and  calm,  because  I  fear  only  with  the  imagina- 
tion, not  with  the  senses ;  and  to  mo,  even  a  ghostly  form 
would  at  once  congeal  to  an  ordinary  earthly  body,  if  I 
had  once  got  over  the  first  shudder,  so  long  as  it  did  not 
drive  me  again,  by  grimaces  and  noises,  into  the  endle^^s 
realm  of  fancy.  But  how,  then,  is  the  instructor  to  guard 
against  the  preponderance  of  the  tragic  spirit-invokiiig 
imagination  ?  Not  by  refutation  or  Biesterian  and  AVag- 
nerian  resolutions  of  the  supernatural  into  the  com- 
monplace —  for  the  possibility  of  unresolved  exceptions 
still  remains  firmly  grasped  by  the  deepest  feelings — but 
partly  by  prosaically  leading  up  to,  quartering  on,  and 
familiarizing  with  the  times  and  places,  which  otherwise 
kindle   the   bewitching   flames   of   the   imagination,   and 

•  Into  many  prosaic  souls  one  ought  to  instil  a  little  spiritual  fear, 
frran  religion  or  poetry. 


30  JEAN   PAUL   FKIEDRICH   EICUTER. 

S  partly  by  arming  tlie  fancy  against  fancy,  by  opposing  the 

(  spirit  to  the  spirit,  and  to  the  devil — God. 

J  Even  in  the  day-time,  on  particular  occasions,  this 
ghostly  dread  would  sometimes  come  over  me.  At  a 
burial,  I  always  had  to  carry  my  father's  Ijible  through  the 
church  into  the  sacristy,  before  the  procession  with  pastor, 
schoolmaster,  children,  cross  and  myself,  set  out  amid 
psalms  from  the  church  to  the  cemetery  near  the  village. 
Willing  and  courageous  enough  did  I  gallop  through 
the  gloomy  silently-hearkening  church  into  the  little 
sacristy  ;  but  which  of  us  can  picture  to  himself  i  he  fear- 
ful, trembling  flight-leaps  with  the  whole  spirit  world 
pursuing  at  my  heels,  and  that  frightful  shoot  from  the 
church-door  ?  And  if  one  did  describe  it,  who  would  not 
laugh?  And  still  I  always  accepted  the  office  of  Bible- 
bearer  without  a  word,  and  silently  kept  my  fear  to  myself. 
We  come  now  to  a  larger  Idylic  period,  to  the  Joditz 
spring  and  summer.  The  two  seasons,  particularly  in 
the  country,  fall  for  various  reasons  into  one  Idyl.  The 
spring  (in  reality)  dwells  only  in  the  mind ;  outside  in 
the  iields  there  is  only  summer,  which  everywhere  is  con- 
trived only  for  the  fruits  and  the  present.  The  snow  is 
the  curtain  which  meroly  requires  to  be  drawn  up  from 
the  stage,  or  the  eartn,  that  the  summer  pleasures  may 
begin  in  the  village — the  town  takes  its  pleasures  only  in 
the  winter — for  ploughing  and  sowing  are  themselves  a 
spring  harvest  to  the  countryman,  and  for  a  parson  who 
farms  his  own  fields,  and  for  his  cooped-up  sons  they 
bring  fresh  scenes  upon  the  stage.  We  poor  children,  shut 
up  in  the  parsonage  by  our  gaoler  and  the  winter,  were 
then  freed  by  the  heaven-sent  angel  of  spring,  and  let  out 
into  the  open  fields,  and  meadows  and  gardens.  Then 
there  was  ploughing,  sowing,  planting,  mowing,  hay- 
making, corn-cutting,  and  harvesting  everywhere.  Our 
father  was  there  and  helped,  and  the  children  helped  him, 
I  particularly,  as  the  eldest.  You  should  only  know,  my 
friends,  what  it  is  to  escape  suddenly, — not  from  town 
walls,  which  enclose  many  a  tield  within  them,  but — from 
parsonage  walls,  out  over  the  whole  village,  and  beyond 
it,  into  th'^5  un walled  space  and  to  look  down  from  above 
into  the  village,  which  one  has  never  seen  into  from  below. 


AHTOBIOGKAPHY.  31 

My  father  did  not  superintend  the  field-labours  as  an 
overseer  or  taskmaster  (although  they  were  carried  on  by 
socmen),  but  as  a  kindly  pastor,  who  wished  to  take 
part  alike  witn  nature  and  his  flock.  When  I  see  other 
ecclesiastics,  land  possessors  and  avaricious  men,  equipped 
so  plentifully  from  head  to  foot  with  sucking-trunks, 
sucking-stings,  and  all  kinds  of  sucking  appliances,  i  find 
in  my  father's  case,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  sucking-in 
system  was  in  altogether  a  too  languishing  and  weak 
condition;  ten  times  a  day  he  would  think  of  giving, — he 
had  but  little  to  do  it  with,— but  hardly  once  of  taking, 
by  which,  however  he  himself  might  have  been  enabled  to 
give  ;  since  then,  I  have  had  cause  to  admire  the  good  food- 
forceps  of  many  a  human  insect,  but  my  father  held 
nothing  in  his  hand  but  the  birth-forceps,  which  bring 
and  preserve  the  life  of  others.  Heavens !  how  different 
— and  how  is  it  that  people  do  not  understand  this  better  ? 
— are  the  regular  commercial,  clerical,  and  noble  men,  who, 
although  they  know  what  is  fitting,  use  their  hands  as  good 
bird-traps,  which  open  and  shut  only  to  catch  something, 
and  who  only  open  their  hands  in  order  to  shut  them. 

Now  began  our  life  in,  that  is  under,  the  heavens.  Those 
mornings  still  twinkle  with  fresh-fallen  dew  on  which  I 
used  to  carry  my  father's  coffee  to  him  in  the  parsonage 
garden,  beyond  the  village,  where  he  was  learning  his 
sermon  in  the  little  summerhouse,  with  windows  opening 
on  all  sides,  just  as  we  children  used  afterwards  to  learn 
our  Lange  in  the  grass.  The  evening  took  us  a  second 
time  into  the  garden  among  the  currant  and  gooseberry 
bushes,  to  gather  the  salad  with  our  mother.  Being  able 
to  have  supper  without  candles  is  one  of  the  unrecognised 
pleasures  of  the  country.  When  we  had  enjoyed  this,  mj' 
father  used  to  take  his  pipe  out  of  doors,  that  is,  into  the 
walle«l  court  of  the  parsonage,  while  I  and  my  brothers 
sprang  about  in  our  long  night-gowns  in  the  fresh  evening 
air,  and  behaved  like  the  swallows,  still  crossing  each 
other,  above  our  heads,  and  flew  nimbly  hither  and 
t  liither,  just  as  though  collecting  for  our  nests. 

The  most  lovely  of  summer  birds  (a  delicate  bin  3  butter- 
fly) fluttered  around  our  hero  in  this  beautiful  season  ; 
it  was  his  firut  love.  She  was  a  blue  eyed  peasant  girl  of 
his  own  age,  with  slim  figure,  oval  face,  slightly  marked 


32  JEAN   PAUL    FHIEDRICH  RIOHTER. 

with  small-pox,  but  with  a  thousand  looks  which  take 
captive  the  heart  as  in  a  magic-circle.  Augusta,  or 
Augustina,  lived  with  her  brother  Eomer,  a  fine  young 
fellow,  known  as  a  choral  singer  and  reckoner,  it  did 
not  indeed  come  to  a  declaration  on  the  part  of  Paul, — 
unless  this  lecture  shall  fall  into  her  hands, — but  he  played 
out  his  love-story  with  spirit  at  a  distance,  she  in  the 
women's  seats  in  church,  and  he  in  the  vicar's  pew,  by 
looking  at  her  closely  enouglx,  and  not  growing  tired  of  it. 
But  this  was  the  beginning  only !  for  when  of  an  evening 
she  drove  her  milch  cows  homo,  which  he  always  knew  b} 
the  unforgetable  bell,  he  used  to  climb  on  the  wall  to  seb 
and  beckon  to  her,  and  then  ran  again  to  the  door,  to  the 
speaking-grating, — she  the  nun  without,  he  the  monk 
within, — in  order  to  screw  his  hand  through  a  chink,  (no 
more  than  this  was  allowed  outside,)  and  to  drop  something 
eatable  into  her  hand,  sugar-almonds,  or  some  other 
dainty,  which  he  had  brought  from  the  town.  Man}-  a 
summer,  alas!  he  did  not  three  times  attain  to  such 
happiness, — generally  he  had  to  consume  all  the  good  things 
himself,  and  the  vexation  into  the  bargain.  Yet  when 
for  once  his  almonds  did  fall,  not  on  stony  ground,  but  in 
the  Eden  of  his  eyes,  then  these  grew  from  them  in  his 
imagination  a  whole  blossoming  garden  full  of  fragrance, 
wherein  he  would  walk  for  weeks.  For  pure  love  wishes 
only  to  give  and  to  become  happy  by  making  so ;  and  if 
there  was  an  eternity  of  perpetually-increasing  capability 
of  giving  happiness,  what  would  be  more  blissful  than 
love  ? 

The  cow-bells  remained  for  a  long  time  the  Manz  des 
Vaches  of  the  high  and  distant  Alps  of  his  childhood,  and 
still  his  old  heart's-blood  would  stir  and  boil  if  these  sounds 
were  again  wafted  to  him.  "  They  are  tones,"  he  would 
say,  "  brought  by  an  ^olian  harp  out  of  the  far,  far 
beautiful  distance,  and  I  almost  could  cry  with  longing 
when  I  hear  them."  For  let  one  associate  with  love  even 
the  smallest  tone,  if  a  cow  even  is  the  bell-ringer,  and  it 
redoubles  its  Orphic  power  of  edifying  and  enchanting, 
and  its  invisible  waves  cradle  his  heart  and  bear  it  along 
to  infinity ;  he  knows  not  whether  he  is  at  home  or  far 
away,  and  the  man  weeps  for  joy  as  well  for  what  he  has 
as  for  what  he  lfiok«. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  3Sl 

In  this  focus  of  lov«  Augustine  remained  towards  Paul; 
and  never  during  many  years  did  he  live  to  see  the  time 
when  he  so  much  as  pressed  her  hand.  Of  a  kiss  we  will 
not  think.  Even  when  he  sometimes  flew  shamefaced  and 
hastily  to  the  lips  of  a  plain  servant  girl  of  his  parents, 
whom  he  did  not  love  a  bit,  both  body  and  soul  boiled  up 
unconsciously  and  innocently  in  the  kiss ;  but  the  actual 
lips  of  a  beloved  one,  who  shone  down  just  at  the  hottest, 
in  the  aphelion,  on  his  deepest,  most  spiritual  love  would 
have  immersed  him  in  burning  heavens,  and  melted  and 
volatilized  him  therein  into  a  glowing  aether.  And  I 
could  wish  that  he  had  been  volatilized  once  or  a  few 
times  while  still  at  Joditz.  When  in  his  thirteenth  year, 
he,  or  much  more,  his  eye,  was  driven  eight  miles  from  the 
beloved  one,  as  his  father  had  received  a  better  living,  he 
burdened  a  young  Joditz  tailor,  whom  his  father  had  taken 
with  him,  for  love  of  the  dear  village  he  had  left,  and  had 
kept  for  some  weeks  in  the  new  and  capacious  parsonage,' 
with  a  number  of  petty  potentates,  whom  he  had  drawn 
from  painted  life,  with  grease  and  soot,  and  had  coloured 
with  deceptive  exactness,  with  the  help  of  his  paint-box  ; 
these  he  commissioned  the  tailor  to  deliver  to  Augustine 
with  the  message  that  the  knights  and  princes  were  from 
him,  and  he  gave  them  as  an  everlasting  keepsake. 

Another  love  affair  of  the  same  period,  which  did  not 
last  longer  than  a  dinner,  was  spun  by  him — the  3'oung 
lady  did  not  know  a  word  about  it— quite  secretly  in  the 
depth  of  his  bosom.  Once  at  Kciditz  he  sat  at  a  table  of 
grown-up  people,  opposite  the  said  lady  and  stared  at  her 
incessantly.  There  sprang  up  in  him  a  love  unutterable 
in  sweetness,  inexhaustible  to  the  gazer,  a  fermentation  of 
the  heart,  a  heavenly  annihilation  and  dissolution  of  the 
whole  being  into  the  eye  only.  She  did  not  say  a  word 
to  the  bewitched  boy,  and  much  less  did  he  to  her ;  but 
had  she  stooped,  and  it  might  be  kissed  the  poor  youth,  he/ 
would  have  gone  straight  to  heaven  for  very  bliss.  y 

He  retained  the  feeling  however  more  than  the  face,  of 
which  nothing  remained  but  the  small-pox  marks.  Now 
as  this  l^eauty  is  already  the  second  one  marked  with  the 
small-pox — in  future  lectures  others  will  follow -the 
Professor  thinks  it  his  duty  to  explain  to  all  fair,  vaocin- 


34  JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRICH  RICHTER. 

ated  hearers,  that  he  knows  how  to  appreciate  them  just 
as  much  and  as  well  as  anyone  else,  but  that  at  that  time 
there  was  a  different  fashion  in  faces.  Paul  has  this  pecu- 
liarity—and he  pledges  himself  to-day  in  this  assemblage 
of  beauty — that  he  can  make  any  female  face — whose  so- 
called  ugliness  must  only  not  be  moral  ugliness — in  the 
highest  degree  charming  and  enchanting,  without  all 
cosmetic  artifices,  without  rouge-pots  and  salve-boxes, 
without  starch  or  soapy  water,  and  without  night-masks, 
if  he  is  allowed  for  the  purpose,  a  few  evenings — songs — 
heart-words,  and  that  no  one  shall  appear  more  beautiful 
than  the  person  in  question — naturally  only  in  his  own 
eyes ;  for  who  can  speak  for  others  ? 

The  lady  just  mentioned  is  a  strong  confirmation  of 
this ;  for  when  he  met  her  again  at  Hof  twenty  years 
afterwards,  as  she  was  living  opposite  to  him,  he  found 
only  the  marks  left,  nothing  else ;  she  herself  was  plain 
and  crooked,  and  I  will  not  tell  her  name. 

Pure  love  has  such  unlimited  power  to  create  and  elevate 
— just  as  low  love  has  to  destroy  and  suppress — that  the 
representation  of  it  would  have  more  influence  on  us,  had 
it  not  been  described  to  us  so  often;  but  it  is  for  this 
reason  alone  that  it  has  been  able  to  bear  the  many 
thousand  volumes  which  paint  it.  Let  anyone  deprive  a 
man,  who  in  the  time  of  love  looks  on  the  landscapes — the 
stars — the  flowers  and  mountains — the  tones,  the  songs — 
the  pictures  and  poems — yes,  and  humanity  and  death — 
with  poetic  enjoyment — deprive  this  man,  I  say,  of  love, 
and  he  will  have  lost  the  tenth  Muse,  or  rather  the 
mother  of  the  Muses ;  each  one  feels  in  after  years  when 
this  sacred  intoxication  is  forbidden,  that  to  all  the  Muses 
the  tenth  one  is  lacking. 

We  come  now  to  our  hero's  Sundays,  on  which  days 
the  Idyls  visibly  make  progress.  Sundays  seem  made 
for  pastors  and  pAstors'  children.  A  good  lot  of  Trinity 
Sundays,  or  the  greatest  number  of  them,  twenty-seven, 
gave  special  delight  to  our  Paul,  although  by  the  whole 
twenty-seven  not  a  single  summer  day  more  came  to  the 
world  or  the  church  than  in  other  years.  In  towns  th© 
birthdays  of  princes  and  magistrates  and  fair-days  are 
the  true  Trinity  Sundays.     On  a  bright  Sunday  morning 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  35 

Paul  commenced  his  enjoyment  by  walking  through  the 
village  before  church -time  with  a  bunch  of  keys, — he 
used  to  jingle  them  on  the  way  to  show  the  village  that 
he  was  there — and  unlocking  the  parsonage  garden  with 
one  of  them  to  get  some  roses  for  the  pulpit  desk.  In  the 
church  all  was  bright  enough,  for  the  long  windows  inter- 
sected the  cold  floor  and  the  women's  pews  with  broad 
bands  of  light,  and  the  sunshine  fell  around  the  enchant- 
ress Augustina.  A  pleasure,  too,  not  to  be  despised  v\  as 
the  being  allowed  (with  his  colleagues  in  office)  after 
church-time  and  before  dinner  to  carry  the  regular  half- 
ix)und  of  bread  and  the  money  to  the  labourers  of  the  week, 
particularly  as  his  father  always  liked  to  send  the 
peasants  an  extra  large  piece  of  bread,  and  thus  give  them 
a  pleasure,  which  children  always  like  to  carry,  and  Paul 
in  particular.  Sometimes,  too,  he  had  to  carry  the  slice  of 
bread  to  Komer,  and  then  he  used  to  look  around  him  for 
the  saint  of  his  church  and  his  heart — but  always  in  vain. 

For  in  his  perspective  love-painting  ten  steps  more  or 
less  were  of  some  consequence  ;  and  granted  that  through 
the  intervention  of  some  particularly  favourable  goddess, 
he  had  stood  only  half  a  step  from  her — but  at  such  un 
realized  bliss  I  will  not  so  much  as  hint,  for  he  would 
K9t  then  have  been  content  without  audible  speech. 

I  maintain  that  no  occupant  of  the  sheriff's,  prince's, 
lecturer's,  pontiff's,  or  any  other  chair  has  any  idea  how 
pastors'  children  enjoy  a  Sunday  evening  (only  a  member 
of  the  clergy  himself  can  know  it),  when,  with  the  two 
services  over,  they,  as  it  were,  celebrate  with  their  father 
the  late  Sabbath  rest  after  the  church-trouble  and  the 
exchange  of  the  surplice  for  the  light  dressing-gown — 
particularly  in  the  villages  where  in  the  summer  the  whole 
population  feasts  and  enjoys  the  pleasures  of  the  eye. 

I  should  perhaps  be  accused  of  remissness  if  I  neglected 
tf>  mention  another  Trinity  pleasure  merely  because  it 
was  a  rare  one ;  on  this  account  it  was  so  much  the  more  a 
pleasure  when  Hagen,  the  pastor  of  Koditz  appeared  with 
his  family  at  the  sermon  to  hear  my  father  and  pay  him  a 
call,  and  Paul's  playmate,  his  little  sen,  showed  himself  at 
the  church  door.  When  Paul  and  his  brother  cauglit 
sight  of  him  at  a  distance  through  the  grating  of  the  choir 

D  2 


36  JEAN   PAUL   FKIEDKICH  EICHTER. 

seats,  there  began  on  both  sides  a  fidgetting  and  shuffling, 
heart-leaping  and  signalling,  and  any  attention  to  the 
sermon  was  now  quite  out  of  the  question,  even  had  pro- 
paganda, ten  chief  court-preachers  and  pastores  primarii 
stationed  themselves  in  the  pulpit  and  talked  them- 
selves hoarse.  The  present  fore-Sabbath,  the  fore-land  of 
brightest  hopes,  the  luncheon  of  the  day,  must  now  alone 
be  enjoyed  at  a  distance  and  in  church.  But  he  who  now 
demands  a  description  of  the  holy  zephyrs  and  calm  of  the 
evening  after  the  first  joyous  storm  of  youthful  and  parental 
preparations,  forgets  that  I  have  not  unlimited  powers.  I. 
should,  however,  like  to  add  that  late  in  the  evening  the 
Joditz  parsonage  accompanied  the  Koditz  far  beyond  the  vil- 
lage, and  that  consequently  this  tour  over  the  village  into 
the  distance,  enhanced  by  the  parents  and  the  little  friends, 
especially  at  such  a  late  hour,  must  have  conferred  and 
left  behind  it  many  blessings,  of  which  more  in  the  future. 
We  now  come,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  to  those  Joditz 
Idyls  which  were  enjoyed  by  Paul,  more  without  Joditz 
than  within,  and  which  will  perhaps  be  most  conveniently 
divided  into  those  when  he  himself  was  not  at  home  and 
those  when  his  father  was  not.  I  will  begin  with  the 
latter,  as  I  reckon  the  absence  of  fathers  on  journeys 
among  the  unrecognized  pleasures  of  childhood ;  for  at 
these  times  the  mothers  dispense  a  glorious  academic 
freedom  from  reports  and  a  full  liberty  of  action.  Paul 
and  his  brother  could  slip  out  behind  their  mother's  back 
while  she  was  deep  in  her  business  and  get  over  the  yard 
door  (to  which  was  attached  a  bell)  to  hunt  some  of  the 
forbidden  game  of  the  village,  i.e.,  butterflies,  grundels, 
and  birch-juice,  or  reeds  for  whistles  ;  or  they  would  fetch, 
a  new  playmate,  the  schoolmaster's  Fritz,  or  help  to  toll 
the  midday  bell  for  the  pleasure  of  being  swung  into  the 
air  by  the  rope.  There  was  also  another  pleasure  of  con- 
siderable importance  within  the  court-yard — only  Paul 
might  easily  have  broken  his  neck  at  it,  and  so  put  an  end 
beforehand  to  my  whole  professorship.  It  consisted  in 
this  :  Paul  climbed  on  to  the  cross-beam  in  the  barn  with 
a  ladder  and  then  sprang  into  the  hay  lying  down  below 
to  the  height  of  a  storey  and  a  half  for  the  pleasure  of 
the  flight  through  the  air. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  37 

Sometimes  he  would  place  his  harpsichord  at  the  open 
window  in  an  upper  storey  and  thump  violently  on  it  that 
the  passers-by  might  hear  him.  To  make  the  tones 
louder  down  below,  he  would  draw  a  quill  sharply  with 
the  right  hand  across  the  strings,  which  he  held  down  at 
the  same  time  with  the  left  on  the  key  board.  borne 
strokes  of  the  quill,  too,  he  tried  on  the  strings  beyond  the 
bridge,  but  there  was  not  much  melody  to  be  got  out  of 
that. 

The  Joditz  summer  Idyls  naturally  occur  still  oftener 
when  one  entirely  leaves  that  village  and  goes  to  another 
or  into  the  town.  Is  there  a  more  blessed  order  on  a 
bright  summer  day  after  the  repetition  of  the  Lange "s 
Grammar  than  this :  "Get  yourself  ready  to  go  with  me 
to  Koditz  after  dinner "  ?  Never  was  the  dinner  more 
tasteless.  Paul  had  to  run  to  keep  up  with  his  father's 
long  strides. 

After  an  hour  he  had  his  out-door  games  with  the  play- 
mate and  his  mother — whose  voice  still  sounds  from  the 
distance  like  the  strains  of  a  lute  or  like  harmonic  bells — 
and  sometimes,  too,  one  or  another  laurel  wreath,  large 
enough  for  his  little  head.  His  father,  in  paternal  delight 
at  the  way  in  which  Paul  caught  up  and  retained  h's 
sermons,  of  which  on  Sunday  evening  he  would  repeat  the 
subject  and  the  diflferent  headings  straight  off,  used  to  tell 
him  to  repeat  them  again  to  their  friends ; — and  the  little 
fellow,  may  I  say  it,  stood  the  test  firmly.  In  a  boy  who 
all  his  life  had  seen  nothing  greater — not  a  count — 
not  a  general — not  a  superintendent — and  very  seldom  a 
nobleman,  at  the  most,  twice  in  a  year  (the  Herr  von 
Beitztein,  who  was  living  in  concealment  having  been 
a  long  time  under  arrest) — in  such  a  boy,  it  displayed 
courage  to  speak  so  publicly  before  the  pastor's  f.jmily. 
But  fire  and  courage  always  came  to  him  when  he  began 
speaking,  however  shy  he  might  be  when  silent.  Yes, 
did  he  not  venture  once  during  his  fathers  absence,  on 
something  still  more  bold?  Did  he  not  one  afternoon, 
when  his  father  was  out,  take  his  hymn  book  and  go  forth 
with  it  to  an  old  woman,  who  for  years  had  been  bedridden, 
and  there  place  himself  by  the  bedside,  as  if  he  were  a 
full-grown  pastor  making  a  sick  visit,  and  begin  to  read 


38  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   RICHTER. 

such  of  the  hymns  as  were  appropriate  ?  But  he  was  soon 
interrupted  by  the  weeping  and  sobbing  with  which,  not 
the  old  woman — she  remained  coldly  indiiferent  to  every- 
thing— but  he  himself,  listened  to  the  hymns. 

One  day,  his  father  took  our  hero  with  him  to  the  Court 
at  Versailles,  as  one  may  call  Zedtwitz  without  exagger- 
ation, since  it  was  the  residence  of  the  patron  of  the  Joditz 
pastors.  Whenever  he  had  been  at  Court,  which  often 
happened  twice  in  a  month  during  the  summer,  he  aroused 
the  provincial  astonishment  of  his  wife  and  child  in  the 
evening  to  the  utmost,  by  tales  about  great  people  and 
their  court  ceremonies,  and  the  court  feasts,  and  ice-cellars, 
and  Swiss  cows,  and  how  he  himself  was  quickly  taken 
from  the  "  domestics'  "  room  to  the  old  Herr  von  Plotho, 
then  to  the  young  lady,  to  whom  he  gave  a  few  preliminary 
exercises  on  the  piano,  and  finally  to  the  Baroness  von 
Plotho,  bom  a  Bodenhausen,  and  how  on  account  of  his 
vivacity  he  was  always  invited  to  the  dinner  table,  even 
when  (this  made  no  difference)  the  most  distinguished 
landowners  of  the  Yoigtland  were  dining  there.  But,  like 
an  old  Lutheran  court  preacher,  he  acknowledged  the 
illimitable  greatness  of  rank,  as  he  did  the  apparitions, 
without  trembling  before  either.  And  yet,  I  say,  h(jw 
much  happier  are  ye,  children  of  the  present  time, 
who  are  brought  up  so  self-dependently,  who  are  taught 
no  prostration  before  rank,(^and  are  strengthened  from 
within  against  the  external  glitter  !>  That  mile-distant 
prostration  of  the  Joditz  pastor's  sonsHbefore  the  Zedtwitz 
throne  was  strengthened  each  year  by  a  magnificent 
carriage  which  came  always  on  Maundy  Thursday  to  fetch 
my  father,  in  the  capacity  of  Confessor,  to  administer  the 
sacrament  to  the  family.  The  children  can  talk  of  the 
carriage,  for  they  always  had  the  delight  of  a  drive  round 
the  village  in  it  before  starting  home  in  the  evening. 

You  will  now  perhaps  have  some  idea  of  our  hero's 
undertaking  when  he  accompanied  the  Court  Confessor — 
who  had  talked  of  him  among  the  great  people  with  too 
much  love  and  praise — to  Zedtwitz  to  be  introduced  to 
the  reigning  house.  After  he  had  walked  to  and  fro  for  a 
long  time  before  the  ancestral  pictures  down  below  in  the 
castle,  the  Baroness  von  Plotho  received  him  on  the  stairs 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  39 

sts  in  a  reception  room ;  Paul  immediately  darting  up, 
grasped  her  dress  according  to  court  regulations  and 
imprinted  the  ceremonial  kiss  upon  it.  And  thus  the 
audience  was  happily  got  over  without  either  Knights  or 
Courtmarshalls  and  the  lad  was  free  to  run  about  again. 

And  this  he  did  in  the  magnificent  garden.  Scarcely 
has  any  other  Ambassador  than  our  little  Hildburghausen 
Councillor  of  Legation  ever  inhaled  and  imbibed  such 
romantic  hours  immediately  after  the  stiff  formal  audience, 
as  those  avenues,  springs,  hot-beds,  and  arbours  must  have 
afforded  to  a  village  child,  more  internally  than  externally 
imaginative,  who  wandered  alone  for  the  first  time  amid 
these  splendoui-s  with  oppressed  and  expanding  breast. 
What  brought  the  soaring  Paul  down  again  to  vulgar  reality 
was  a  wooden  bird  on  a  string  with  an  iron  beak,  which  he 
could  shoot  into  the  black  of  a  target.  A  delicious  fruit 
cake  sent  down  from  the  castle  preserved  the  happy 
medium  between  flying  and  standing;  the  sweet  flavour 
of  it  still  remains  in  the  reliquary  of  our  hero.  0  ye 
lovely,  lonely  hours  and  walks  for  that  hungering  village 
child,  whose  heart  would  so  fain  have  filled  itself  with — 
nay,  even  have  longed  for — the  outer  world. 

With  less  of  court  glitter  come  now,  under  the  summer 
Idyls,  those  frequent  errands  which  Paul,  with  fitting 
wallet  on  his  back,  had  to  make  to  his  grandparents 
at  Hof,  to  fetch  meat  and  coffee  and  all  the  other  things 
which  either  were  not  to  be  had  at  all  in  the  village  or  at 
any  rate  not  at  the  very  lowest  town  prices.  His  mother 
supplied  him  with  a  few  little  coins  to  take  with  him — it 
must  not  seem  as  if  the  whole  was  given, — so  that  his 
grandmother,  generous  to  her  daughter  and  son-in-law,  and 
stingy  only  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  might  fill  his  wallet 
with  anything  that  might  then  be  on  the  bill  of  fare. 

The  two  hours'  road  led  him  over  a  commonplace, 
uninteresting  country,  through  a  wood,  and  therein  over  a 
foaming  stony  river,  till  at  last  from  a  hill-slope,  the 
view  of  the  town  down  below  in  the  plain,  with  its  two 
anited  towers  and  the  Saale,  filled  to  overflowing  the  heart 
of  the  little  messenger  who  was  easily  satisfied.  With 
childish  dread  of  all  times  of  war  and  tribulation,  he  passed 
the  mouth  of  a  cave  on  the  outskirts  of  the  town,  whore, 


/ 


40  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRTCH    RICHTER. 

according  to  the  legend,  the  people  of  Hof  had  hidden 
themselves  in  the  thirty  years'  war  ;  the  neighbouring 
fulling-mill  with  its  ceaseless  thunderstrokes  and  pon- 
derous beams  expanded  his  little  village  soul  sufficiently 
for  it  to  take  in  the  town  more  comfortably. 

When  now  he  had  kissed  the  hand  of  this  tall  serious 
grandfather,  sitting  behind  his  loom,  and  of  the  joyous 
little  grandmother,  and  had  delivered  his  mother's  official 
letter — his  father  was  too  proud  to  ask  for  anything — the 
.^canty  money  was  publicly  handed  over  and  the  secret 
articles  of  petition  were  delivered  up  behind  the  door  in 
the  passage ;  and  in  the  afternoon  he  trotted  back  home 
with  his  knapsack  full,  and  with  some  su^ar  almonds  foi 
Augustine,  in  high  delight  over  the  parental  provision 
ship  on  his  back. 

He  still  remembers  one  summer-day,  when  on  bis  home- 
ward journey,  about  two  o'clock,  as  he  v\as  looking  down 
on  the  sunlit  mountain-slopes,  the  gliding  waves  of  t  e 
corn-fields,  and  the  hastening  shadows  of  the  clouds,  an 
unknown  indefinite  longing  came  over  him,  with  more  of 
grief  in  it  than  of  pleasure,  a  longing  for  someth  ng  he 
had  never  known.  It  was  the  whole  being  yearning  for 
the  heavenly  goods  of  life,  which  still  lay  undefined  and 
colourless  in  the  dark  depths  of  the  heart,  and  which 
brightened  momentarily  under  the  penetratins::  sunbeams. 
There  is  a  time  of  longing  when  the  object  as  yet  bears  no 
name,  the  longing  knows  only  its  own  name.  In  later 
life,  too,  the  power  of  this  painful,  searching  longing  has 
been  asserted  less  by  the  moonshine  whose  silvery  sea 
softly  melts  the  heart  and  thus  gently  leads  it  to  the 
Infinite,  than  by  the  afternoon  sun,  shining  over  a  broad 
landscape  ;  in  Paul's  works  this  is  several  times  introduced 
and  described. 

In  the  winter's  snow  also,  Paul  had  frequently  to  make 
a  journey  as  Hof  and  Holland*  messenger  in  times  of 
pecuniary  want ;  at  these  times  he  had  to  use  his  wit  in 
ne^ociating  loans  with  his  grandfather;  so,  too,  in  the 
coldest  weather  he  was  allowed  to  accompany  his  father 
to  the  hospitable  parsonages  in  the  neighbourhood.     To 

*  Holland  at  tliis  time  had  become  proverbial  foi  its  pecuuiary 
omoarrassmeuta. — Tr. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  41 

these  weekly  gymnastic  exercises  he  ovr<!8  much  of  his 
tenacious  strength  in  after-life,  and  they  certainly  were 
the  best  antidote  for  his  absurd  physical  training,  which, 
like  others  at  that  time,  with  the  fur  caps,  purgatives,  and 
air  preventers,  the  muffling,  shutting  up,  and  coddling,  did 
not  prevent,  but  rather  prepared,  an  nnhappy  future.  The 
village  children  and  the  poor  are  fortunate  in  this,  that 
the  summer,  with  its  spring  and  autumn  on  right  and 
left,  happily  extirpates  the  weeds  of  winter ;  the  plants 
which  have  faded  in  the  winter  hot-house  recover  im- 
mediately when  gambolling  about  bare-head  and  bare-foot 
in  the  open  air  and  regain  their  strength  on  the  cool  and 
fresh  fare.  Only  the  good  princesses  are  unhelped  by  any 
season.  Yet  people  do  not  believe  that  the  summer  repairs 
the  evil  of  winter,  but  rather  the  reverse,  that  this  indoor 
season  is  the  doctor  of  the  out-door  one. 

I  will  now  give  you  the  last  and  greatest  never-failing 
summer  Idyl,  which  occurred  regularly  on  the  Monday 
after  St.  James'  day.  On  that  day  his  grandfather  always 
sent  a  coach  to  take  Paul's  tender  mother  to  the  yearly 
fair  at  Hof,  and  he  always  had  a  place  in  it  with  them. 
Not  to  hurt  the  cold  historian,  1  here  remark  quietly  and 
simply,  that  if  a  mere  common  town  is  more  to  a  village 
child  than  a  Kirmess  village,*  surely  a  Jahrmarkt  town 
must  be  a  many-times-multiplied  double-town,  and  conse- 
quently must  excel  in  splendour  all  that  a  village  young- 
ster has  ever  pictured  to  himself.  And  thus  it  was  with 
Paul,  who,  in  addition  to  this,  was  a  boy  not  without  imagi- 
nation. As  formerly  drink-offerings  were  sent  to  emperors, 
80  our  mother  was  always  received  by  her  parents  with 
sweet  wine,  and  her  son  went  with  some  of  it  in  his  head 
to  Silberer,  the  hair-dresser.  Here  he  had  his  head  cooled 
from  outside  with  the  curling  tongs,  and  the  tight  screwing 
of  the  curl-papers  ;  and  came  back  the  cooler,  fresher,  and 
whiter   with  curls  and  crest,  fresh   out   of  the   powder 

*  Eirmese,  Kirchmesiee,  or  Kirchweihe,  was  originally  the  festivity 
at  the  ormaecratioQ  of  a  church.  It  took  iU  origin  from  the  Jewish 
festivity  at  the  coiisecratioa  of  the  temples,  which  alx^ays  took  phicu 
in  Noviuiljer,  ami  it  i«  tiius  held  in  that  month.  In  the  nintu  century 
it  became  un  annual  feativity  to  commemorate  the  anniversaries  of  th< 
eouscci  ation. — Tb. 


42  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   RICHTER. 

shower  to  dinner,  which  cannot  have  been  a  meal  of  much 
importance,  as  his  grandfather  had  to  hasten  off  very  soon 
to  sell  his  cloth  bales  in  the  townhall.  At  the  evening 
meal,  there  was  all  the  more  time  and  abundance,  as 
among  the  ancient  Komans.  The  afternoon  now  offered 
excellent  fun  for  Paul,  who  was  freed  from  restraint, 
deafened  and  dazzled  amid  the  variegated  and  noisy  con- 
fusion of  men  and  goods.  Paul  had  his  penny-piece  of 
fair  money  from  his  grandmother  in  his  pocket  and 
could  buy  everything — he  could  carry  his  purchases  home 
to  the  comfortless  empty  house,  for  all  were  out ;  gloomy 
and  lonely,  one  was  forced  to  go  into  the  crowd  again. 
'J  he  mos'  distino;uished  and  beautiful  ladies  up  at  the 
windows  were  gratis,  and  he  fell  in  love  on  all  sides,  in 
walking  past  down  below,  and  embraced  them,  as  they  did 
not  know  him,  in  the  street ;  but  not  one  of  all  these  ladies, 
elevated  by  storeys  or  head  -  dresses,  did  he  select  as 
favourite  sultana,  but  bought  his  almonds  and  raisins  for 
the  cow-maiden,  Augustine.  From  six  to  half-past  the 
noise  and  excitement  grew  greater  under  the  evening 
rays,  which  gilded  and  beautified  ever  more  and  more 
both  themselves  and  the  people  :  but  then  I  had  to  go 
home,  there  was  no  help  for  it,  for  our  grandfather  supped 
at  seven  o'clock  after  the  market,  and  we  all  assembled 
then. 

The  supper  we  will  not  mention,  for  Paul  tasted  little 
of  it —he  had  already  eaten  enough  -but  all  the  more 
gladly  do  I  follow  him  again  into  the  streets  after  the 
second  grace,  where  he  was  as  happy  as  any  young  soul 
escaped  from  a  parsonage  could  be. 

Kambling  about  in  late  twilight  or  early  night  in- 
toxicates and  inspires  youth.  It  was  at  this  hour  that 
the  Janisary  band  marched  through  the  principal  streets 
on  m  irket  days,  and  the  people  and  children  swarmed 
after  them,  deafened  and  deafening ;  then  for  the  first  time 
the  village  boy  heard  the  drums,  fifes  and  cymbals.  "  In 
me" — these  are  his  own  words, — "who  had  a  ceaseless 
yearning  for  the  sound  of  music,  it  produced  a  complete 
music-intoxication,  and  I  heard  the  world  as  the  drunken 
man  sees  it— double  and  in  motion.  The  fifes  made  the 
mo&t   impression   on   me   with  their  high-pitched   shrill 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  43 

melody.  How  often  have  not  I  tried  to  recall  these  tones 
before  falling  to  sleep,  at  which  time  the  imagination  most 
easily  finds  the  keys  of  lost  tones,  and  how  happy  am  I  now 
when  I  hear  them  again;  as  deeply  happy  as  if  my  old  child- 
hood, like  a  Tithonus,  had  become  immortal  in  the  tone,  and 
spoke  to  me  through  it.  Ah  the  small,  faint,  invisible 
tones  contain  whole  worlds  for  the  heart,  they  are  souls 
for  the  soul."  The  notes  of  the  higher  octaves,  perhaps 
strike  more  deeply.  Engel  affirms  that  all  really  har- 
monious tones  lie  between  the  low  and  the  high,  but 
poetical  music  may  be  said  to  lie  beyond  them.  Down 
in  the  dark  depths  of  the  lowest  bass  notes  slowly 
vibrates  the  dead  past ;  the  high  pitch  of  the  treble  notes, 
on  the  other  notes,  cries  out  and  pierces  into  the  future,  or 
calls  to  it  by  the  sharpness  and  confinedness  expressed  in 
its  tones.  Thus  in  the  Russian  field-music,  the  high  sharp 
whistling  of  the  small  fifes  sounded  almost  dreadful ;  like 
a  Bothmaus  whistle  calling  to  the  slaughter,  like  a  cruel 
preliminary  Te  Deum  of  coming  bloodshed. 

I  fear  people  will  talk  in  Germany  and  elsewhere, 
because  I  have  reserved  the  autumn,  as  the  highest  Joditz 
Idyl ;  just  the  autumn  which  can  lead  to  nothing  else  but 
snowy  paths.  But  an  imaginative  being  like  Paul  enjoys 
in  autumn,  not  only  the  season  itself,  but  also  in  anticipa- 
tion, the  winter  with  its  homeliness,  and  the  spring  with 
its  poetical  pictures ;  while  the  spring,  when  it  has  come, 
passes  immediately  into  the  summer,  and  the  summer  is  a 
centre,  or  halting  point  of  the  imagination,  too  near  to  the 
autumn  and  too  far  from  the  spring.  Still,  to  this  day  he 
sees  in  autumn  time,  through  the  half-denuded  trees,  the 
snowy  blossom-mountains  far  on  in  the  coming  year  and 
visits  them  like  a  bee  searching  for  honey ;  those  moun- 
tains which  melt  on  our  approach  ;  and  in  the  autumn,  too, 
are  sketched  out  and  enjoyed  those  plans  for  the  yet  distant 
spring-journeys  and  spring-pleasures :  in  the  spring  itself 
the  chief  part  is  already  over.  As  the  landscape  painter 
prefers  the  autumn,  so  does  the  spiritual  painter,  the  poet, 
at  least  in  his  old  age. 

But  our  hero  had  also  a  special  reverse  side  in  his  cha- 
racter, which  he  turned  towards  the  autumn,  and  this  was 
that   he   had   always   had  a  singular   liking  for   homely 


44  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   KICHTER. 

retired  life  and  intellectual  nest-making.  He  is  a  do- 
mestic snail,  which  loves  to  withdraw  and  make  itself 
comfortable  in  the  smallest  corners  of  its  dwelling,  only  he 
must  always  have  his  shell  wide  open,  in  order,  not  to 
raise  his  four  feelers  into  the  air  like  four  butterfly  wings, 
but  to  thrust  them  ten  times  farther  up  towards  heaven, 
reaching  at  any  rate  with  each  feeler  one  of  the  four 
satellites  of  Jupiter.  Of  this  foolish  mingled  longing  for 
the  near  and  the  distant — like  a  telescope  which  by  a  turn 
magnifies  either  that  which  is  near  or  far  away — more  will 
occur  in  our  lectures  than  either  I  desire  or  the  autumn 
alone  can  supply. 

This  domesticity  showed  itself  already  in  the  fancies  of 
the  boy ;  he  thought  the  swallows  happy  because  they  could 
sit  so  snugly  all  night  in  their  walled  nests.  When  he 
climbed  on  the  roof  up  to  the  large  pigeon-house,  he  was 
quite  at  home  in  the  room  full  of  little  rooms  or  pigeon 
holes,  and  the  front  was  a  miniature  Louvre  or  Escurial  to 
him.  I  fear  that  I  shall  hardly  be  forgiven,  if  I  introduce 
the  following  childish  triviality  into  my  lecture ;  namely, 
that  he  made  a  complete  flies'  house,  a  country  residence, 
properly  speaking,  out  of  clay.  It  was  about  as  long  and 
broad  as  a  man's  fist,  and  a  little  higher,  and  the  whole 
was  painted  red,  and  divided  into  brick  squares  with  ink ; 
inside  it  was  provided  with  two  floors,  and  many  stairs, 
landings,  and  rooms,  and  a  spacious  garret,  while  outside 
there  were  low  windows  and  eaves,  and  a  chimney,  covered 
over  at  the  top  with  a  piece  of  glass,  in  order  that  the  flies 
might  not  get  out — instead  of  the  smoke.  Windows  were 
nowhere  spared  and  one  might  say,  that  the  castle  con- 
sisted more  of  window  than  of  wall.  Now  when  Paul  saw 
his  numberless  flies  running  upstairs  and  downstairs, 
into  all  the  large  rooms  of  this  vast  castle,  and  into  the 
tiny  little  windows,  he  pictured  their  domestic  life  to 
himself,  and  wished  that  he  could  walk  with  them  on  the 
windows,  and  fancied  himself  in  the  position  of  the  in- 
habitants who,  from  the  largest  rooms  could  betake 
themselves  to  the  prettiest  and  tiniest  of  parlours,  and 
bow-window^s.  How  small  and  insignificant  must  the 
parsonage  have  appeared  to  him  in  comparison 

In   later  years,  too,   as  author,   he   showed  in   Wutz, 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  45 

Fixlem,  and  Fibel,  this  honse-and -corner-loving  disposi- 
tion, and  still,  as  man,  he  looks  with  longing  eyes  at 
every  little  slate-covered  house  with  two  stories  and 
flowers  before  the  windows,  and  a  little  garden  in  front 
which  one  can  water  from  the  window;  the  good  domes- 
tic fool  can  sit  quite  contentedly  in  a  close  carriage  and 
look  roimd  at  the  side-pockets  and  say,  "A  beautiful  quiet 
little  fireproof  room,  this !  and  out  there  are  the  big 
villages  and  gardens  driving  past."  So  much  is  certain, 
that  he  could  write  just  as  little  as  he  oould  live  in  a 
baron's  hall  or  a  St.  Peter's  Church — to  him  it  would  be 
a  market-place  covered  with  a  roof,  while  <>n  the  other 
hand  he  would  be  quite  capaWe  of  living  and  writing 
continually  on  jMont  Blanc  or  ^^tna,  if  the  wherewithal 
was  provided  for  him  there  ;  only  the  limited  and  human 
can  never  be  small  enough  for  him,  the  greatne.'^s  of 
Nature  cannot  be  too  much  enlarged :  the  smallness  of 
man's  works  is  made  smaller  by  enlargement. 

By  what  I  have  now  said  the  Joditz  autumn  Idyl  is 
pretty  well  painted.  "Jhe  autumn  leads  people  home- 
wards, and  there  leaves  them  its  horn  of  pl«  nty  for  the 
winter's  nest,  which  they  build,  like  the  crossbill,  who 
makes  her  nest  and  hatches  her  young  in  the  month  of 
ice.  It  must  be  on  account  of  that  time  that  Taul  still 
hears  with  pleasure  the  first  threshing,  or  the  noisy  flocks 
of  crows  in  the  woods,  and  the  calling  and  signalling  of 
the  birds  of  passage  before  their  departure,  as  the  preludes 
to  a  cosy  homely  winter  nesting ;  nnd  I  am  sorry  for  his 
Hake  that  in  the  autumn,  when  the  geese  are  flying  in 
flocks,  he  hears  them  with  real  pleasure  cackling  as  the 
foretellers  of  the  winter-time.  By  this  homely  and 
wintery  disposition  I  have  always  accounted  for  the 
unusual  enjoyment  with  which  he  read  all  descriptions 
of  travels  in  wintry  countries,  as  Spitzbergen  or  (Green- 
land, for  the  representation  on  paper  merely  of  distress 
can  scarcely  be  an  exi'lanation  of  his  pleasure,  because  if 
it  were  so.  he  would  have  had  the  same  feelings  on 
reading  of  the  distresses  in  the  hot  countries.  Thu  well- 
known  pleasure,  on  the  other  hand,  which  one  feels  over 
each  quarter  of  an  hour  by  which  the  days  are  diminished 
in  autumn  may,  I  think,  be  attributed  more  to  the  liking 


46        JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDKICH  RICHTER. 

for  superlatives — even  though  they  be  the  antipodes  of 
one  another — the  liking  for  what  is  infinitely  great  or 
infinitely  small,  in  short  for  the  Maxima  and  Minima,  and 
this  the  more  so,  as  he  had  just  as  much  pleasure  when 
the  days  were  increasing  in  length ;  then  he  had  no  other 
wish  than  for  long  Swedish  days.  One  sees  from  all  with 
what  economy  and  skill  God  has  armed  and  equipped  man 
for  the  path  of  life,  on  which  there  is  little  to  be  found 
either  on  the  right  or  left,  so  that  however  black  it  may 
be  around  him,  he  can  always  find  some  white  in  it,  and 
with  an  amphibious  instinct  for  land  and  water  can 
neither  drown  nor  thirst. 

It  is  just  these  autobiographical  features,  gentlemen, 
which  a  future  biographer  will  easily  work  up  into  a  life 
and  for  which  he  will  perhaps  thank  me.  I  know  besides 
of  nothing  but  this  home-and- winter-loving  disposition 
which  can  make  intelligible  to  me  why  Paul  tastes  again 
with  so  much  relish  another  autumn  pleasure,  very  insipid 
in  itself.  In  the  autumn  evenings  (the  gloomy  ones,  too), 
my  father,  in  dressing  gown,  used  to  take  Paul  and  Adam 
to  the  potato  field,  lying  above  the  Saale.  One  youngster 
cai  ried  the  hoe  and  the  other  a  hand  basket.  When  we 
arrived  on  the  field  our  father  dug  up  as  many  new  potatoes 
as  were  wanted  for  supper,  Paul  picking  them  up  and 
throwing  them  into  the  basket,  while  Adam  was  allowed  to 
climb  the  hazel  bushes  after  the  nuts.  After  a  little  time 
he  had  to  come  down  to  the  potato-bed,  and  Paul  in  his  turn 
climbed  up.  And  then  they  went  happily  home  with 
potatoes  and  nuts, — and  I  will  let  each  one  paint  for 
himself  as  brilliantly  as  the  partaker  himself,  the  joy  of 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  walk,  and  an  hour's  run  in  the  open 
air,  and  of  the  return  home  and  celebration  of  the  harvest 
festival  by  candlelight. 

Two  other  autumn  flowers  of  joy  which  have  been 
preserved  in  the  store-room  of  his  memory  are  still 
particularly  fresh  and  green,  and  they  are  both  trees. 
The  one  is  a  thick  tall  muscatel  pear-tree  in  the  parsonage 
yard,  the  fall  of  whose  fruit  we  children  endeavoured  to 
hasten  all  the  autumn  by  artificial  means,  until  at  length 
on  the  most  important  day  of  the  season  our  father  himself 
climbed  by  a  ladder  into  the  forbidden  tree,  and  brought 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  47 

down  a  sweet  paradise  for  the  whole  house  and  for  the 
oven.  The  other  tree,  always  green  and  always  blooming 
more  beautifully  still  than  the  former,  is,  however,  smaller 
than  it.  It  is  the  felled  birch-tree  which  every  year,  on 
St.  Andrew's  Eve,  was  dragged  trunk  first  into  the  room 
by  the  old  woodcutter,  and  planted  in  a  large  flower-pot 
in  lime-and-water,  so  that  the  green  leaves  might  be 
ready  just  at  Christmas-time,  when  the  golden  fruits  were 
hung  upon  it.  This  birch-tree  (it  was  no  mourning  but 
a  rejoicing  birch)  had  the  peculiarity  that  it  strewed  the 
dark  December  road  up  to  Christmas  with  flowers  of  joy, 
namely  with  the  little  forced  leaves,  each  fresh  one  of 
which  pointed  like  a  watch-hand  to  another  day  left 
behind ;  and  that  each  child  could  celebrate  (under  this 
winter  May-tree)  its  Tabernacle  feast  of  hope. 

All  will  willingly  exempt  me  from  a  description  of 
Paul's  Christmas  Festival  who  have  met  with  pictures  of 
it  in  his  works,  which  I  least  of  anyone  am  able  to  surpass. 
1'wo  additions  only  may  here  be  made  to  the  picture. 
When  Paul  on  Christmas  morning  stood  before  the 
lighted  tree,  and  the  new  world  of  gold,  glitter,  and  gifts 
lay  in  front  of  him,  and  he  found  and  received  one  new  and 
costly  present  after  another, — not  a  tear — namely,  of  joy, 
but  a  sigh,— namely,  over  life — was  what  first  arose  in 
him  ;  in  one  word  the  step,  or  spring,  or  flight,  out  of  the 
swelling,  sporting,  boundless  sea  of  imagination  on  to  the 
limited,  limiting,  immoveable  shore  expressed  itself  in  the 
boy  by  a  sigh  for  a  larger,  more  beautiful  land.  But  ere 
this  sigh  was  breathed  forth  and  the  happy  reality 
had  asserted  its  strength,  Paul  felt  that  out  of  gratitude 
he  must  show  himself  happy  before  his  mother,  and  so 
put  on  the  appearance ;  only  for  a  short  time  however,  for 
the  rays  of  the  breaking  morning  of  reality  immediately 
extinguished  and  dispersed  the  moonlight  of  fancy. 

Here,  too,  may  be  mentioned  a  peculiarity  of  my  father's 
which  was  shown  just  at  the  same  time.  It  was  this.  My 
father,  who  took  part  so  joyfully  in  everything,  permitting 
and  giving  every  pleasure  so  willingly,  came  down  from 
his  rfx)m  on  Christmas  morning  into  the  gaily  lighted 
parlour,  as  if  decked  in  mourning  crape.  Our  mother 
assured  us  of  her  own  ignorance  of  the  cause  of  this  annual 


4:8  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   RICHTER. 

melancholy,  and  no  one  had  the  courage  to  ask.  To  onr 
mother,  too,  he  left  the  whole  of  the  tiouble  and  pleasure 
of  decking  the  table  on  Christmas  Eve,  and  in  this  respect 
perhaps  he  remained  consideiably  behind  his  son  Paul, 
who  always  helped  his  wife, — if  it  was  not  she  who  only 
helped  him, — at  the  children's  Christmas  play ;  for  in 
fact — particularly  in  their  earlier  years,  when  they  were 
more  foolish — for  many  months  before  the  performance 
of  this  fairy  play,  he  had  acted  the  False  Informer,  the 
Playwriter,  and  the  Scene  Painter  on  the  sofa,  and  at 
length  on  the  evening  had  appeared  as  complete  Opera 
Director  and  practical  Manager — and  for  each  of  his  three 
children  he  had  carefully  marked  off  a  portion  of  the  table 
by  lights,  the  presents  for  the  maid  being  placed  on  a  side 
table,  in  fact  he  had  laid  out  and  arranged  everything  on 
table  and  tree  so  brightly  and  with  such  judgment  that 
the  whole  scene  sparkled,  as  did  his  own  eyes. 

In  spite  of  this,  the  father  and  the  father's  sadness  are 
to  be  explained  from  the  son,  and  in  this  way ;  the  latter 
himself  with  all  his  outward  activity  has  had  for  many 
years  to  veil  a  similar  feeling.  In  both  cases  it  is  only  a 
melancholy  feeling,  tender  from  church  chants  and  novels, 
which  comes  with  the  cou^'oarison  of  the  mature  autumn 
of  reality  with  the  spring  (.f  childhood  before  one's  eyes, 
in  which  the  blossoms  of  the  ideal  grow  directly  on  the 
stem  of  the  real  without  the  intervention  of  leaves  and 
branches. 

I'he  wine  and  honey  of  childish  joy  required  then  even 
the  ideal,  ethereal  addition  of  a  belief  in  the  Holy  Child 
who  gave  them.  For  as  soon  as  Paul  had  seen  with  his 
own  eyes  that  they  were  only  people,  not  supernatural 
beings,  who  had  gathered  the  flowers  and  fruits  and  placed 
them  on  the  table ;  the  Eden  fragrance  and  Eden  splendour  ~ 
were  gone,  brushed  away,  and  the  every-day  flower  bed 
was  there.  It  is  too  incredible  how,  like  all  children,  he 
defended  himself  against  every  assaulter  of  his  heavenly 
faith,  and  how  long  he  held  to  his  supernatural  revelations 
against  all  the  enlightenment  of  his  increasing  years, 
against  all  the  hints  of  fortune,  until  at  last  he  saw  and 
conquered,  less  than  he  was  conquered.  So  difficult  is  it 
for  people  of  all  religions  to  bring  down  to  humanity  those' 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  49 

who,  in  their  fancied  heaven,  play  the  part  of  beneficent 
deities  tc»  them. 

Thus  far  the  Joditz  Idyls  extend;  they  lasted  long 
enough  for  parents  and  children,  namely,  as  long  as  the 
Trojan  ^Var.  'I 'he  expenses  for  the  four  sons  were  in- 
creasing and  the  promised  school  became  more  and  more 
necessary  for  them.  At  times,  too,  a  feeling  of  dis- 
satisfaction came  over  our  fathe^r  that  he  was  exhausting 
and  using  up  his  best  years  and  best  strength  in  such  a 
small  village  church.  At  length  Barnikel,  the  pastor  of 
Schwarzenbach-on-the-Saale,  a  small  city  or  large  market 
town,  died.  Death  is  the  real  play  director  and  manager 
of  the  world.  He  takes  a  man  like  a  ciplier  from  the  row 
of  figures,  from  the  beginning,  the  middle  or  the  end,  and, 
lo,  the  whole  row  closes  up  with  new  positions  and  values. 
The  living,  which  was  in  the  gift  of  the  Count  von 
Schonburg-Waldenburg  and  the  Baroness  von  Plotho  by 
turns,  fell  this  time  to  Richter's  patroness,  who  had  long 
and  openly  looked  forward  to  this  opportunity  of  helping 
and  rewarding  the  good,  cheerful,  disinterested,  and  im- 
poverished pastor. 

But  he  went  not  more  but  rather  less  often  to  Zedtwitz 
on  this  account.  To  send  a  written  petition  or  even  so 
mnch  as  a  verbal  request  for  a  pastorship  would  have 
stained  him  as  an  act  of  simony,  believing  orthodoxly  as 
he  did  that  the  Holy  Ghost  alone  must  call  one  to  a  sacred 
office.  And  thus  the  birth-proud  patroness  had  to  give 
way  to  the  firm,  poor,  and  office-proud  Blackcoat  without 
request  or  solicitation.  I  am  letting  you  into  a  secret  of 
the  Joditz  Court — which  it  has  itself  long  since  forgotten 
— when  I  relate  from  the  lips  of  the  old  pastor  that  which 
happened  on  the  day  of  his  appointment.  He  was  as  usual 
shown  in  at  first  to  the  old  Herr  von  Plotho,  and  he  for 
love  and  joy  could  not  keep  back  from  my  father  the  news 
of  his  good  fortune,  but  told  him  straight  out,  and  even 
gave  him  the  presentation,  while  properly  his  wife  as  the 
real  patroness  was  alone  able  to  do  so.  Afterwards,  when 
the  newly  created  pastor  came  to  her  to  present  his  thanks 
there  was  a  little  ill-temper  on  the  part  of  the  baiuness 
towards  her  husband  which  she  could  not  wholly  conceal 
from  the  Court.     Both  with  similar  intention  had  M^ished, 

I.  fc 


50  JEAN  PAUL   FKIEDEICH   RICHTER. 

by  delivering  the  presentation  personally,  to  spare  their 
moneyless  friend  all  the  various  gratuities  and  doTicenrs — 
fatal  words  for  one  party  concerned — of  the  messengers. 

As  I  know  so  well  your  benevolent  disposition  towards 
father  and  son,  I  would  guess  that  you  are  now  inwardly 
exclaiming  with  joy,  "  Th^'o  is  indeed  glorious,  that  the 
moon-change  of  the  parsonages  at  last  brings  him  finer 
weather,  and  we  now  see  the  glad  musician  duly  leaving 
the  company  earlier  than  usual  (he  w^ould  gladly  have 
talked  longer  with  them  out  of  gratitude)  and  hurrying 
home  with  his  bulldog,  to  tell  and  share  his  own  delight 
as  soon  as  possible  with  all  his  family,  and  particularly 
with  his  poor  wife,  who  of  a  truth,  has  already  endured 
enough  in  the  ear-gleaning  and  tithe-collecting  on  the 
paternal  fields." 

I  have  nothing  to  say  against  this,  except  that  you  are 
all  very  wide  of  the  mark  and  I  am  surprized  at  your 
mistake.  He  brought  the  glad  tidings  seriously  and  sadly 
not  only  because  on  the  flower-and-fruit-wreath  of  good 
fortune,  as  on  the  bridal  wreath,  a  few  dew-drops  always 
hang,  looking  like  tears,  but  also  because  the  departure 
from  his  loved  and  loving  parish,  which  for  many  years 
had  been  his  second  family  in  the  larger  family  hall  of 
the  church  began  to  shed  tears,  and  lastly,  too,  because 
now  the  quiet,  peaceful,  sequestered,  simple  village-life 
would  hang  in  his  memory  only  as  a  distant  picture. 
Country-life,  like  sea-life,  is  indeed  monotonous,  without 
variety  of  small  or  great  events ;  but  there  is  a  kind  of 
uniform  joy,  which  strengthens,  just  as  the  monotonous  sea 
air  strengthens  the  consumptive  patient  because  there  are 
no  dust  clouds  to  inhale,  and  no  insects  which  torment. 

I  think  that  I  have  now  so  far  fulfilled  my  obligations 
as  my  own  historical  Professor,  in  all  that  concerns  Joditz, 
the  village  of  my  education,  that  in  my  next  lecture  I  may 
move  with  my  hero  and  his  family  to  Schwarzenbach-on- 
the-Saale,  where  undoubtedly  the  curtain  goes  up  a  few 
feet  higher,  and  rather  more  of  the  chief  actor  comes  in 
view  than  merely  the  child's  shoes,  as  hitherto.  For  indeed 
we  send  him  from  to-day's  lecture  into  the  next,  as  a 
human  being  of  upwards  of  twelve  years  of  age  with  ten 
times  less  knowledge   than  the  five-year-old    Christian 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  51 

Heinrich  Heineke  von  Liibeck,*  whose  nnrse  laid  him 
again  to  her  breast  after  his  examination, — so  ignorant 
of  all  natural,  or  geographical,  or  world  history,  except 
of  that  little  part  which  he  himself  was — so  ignorant  of 
French  and  music ;  in  Latin  provided  with  just  a  little  bit 
of  Lange  and  Speccius — in  short,  such  an  empty,  trans- 
parent skeleton  or  framework,  with  no  nourishment  or 
flesh  of  learning,  that,  with  you  all,  I  can  hardly  await  the 
place  and  time  when,  in  Schwarzenbach-on-the-Saale,  he 
must  at  length  begin  to  know  something,  and  clothe 
his  skeleton  with  flesh. 

With  him  we  now  leave  that  unknown  little  village ; 
although  it  has  not,  like  many  another  village,  put  on  a 
laurel  crown  won  in  war,  j^et  still,  I  think,  he  can  give 
it  a  high  place  in  his  heart  and  say,  even  to-day,  as  if  he 
was  just  leaving  it — "  Loved  little  village,  thou  art  still 
dear  and  precious  to  me.  Two  little  sisters  have  I  left 
in  thy  bosom.  My  father  contentedly  spent  in  thee  his 
fairest  Sundaj'-s;  and  in  the  morning  of  life  1  have  seen 
the  radiance  of  thy  meadows.  Truly  thy  well-known  in- 
habitants, whom  I  will  now  thank,  are  long  since  gone  like 
my  father,  but  for  their  unknown  children  and  grand- 
children, my  heart's  wish  is  that  they  may  be  prosperous 
and  that  warfare  may  pass  by  them  at  a  distance." 

*  Christian  von  Schonoich,  the  tutor  ami  biographer  of  this  prodigy 
who  was  born  February  6th,  1721,  tells  us  (1726),  in  his  '  Life,  Deeds, 
Journeys,  and  Death,'  that  he  understood  Latin,  French,  History, 
Geography,  and  the  Institutions  of  the  Roman  Law,  that  he  was  well- 
informed  in  Theology  and  Anatomy,  was  witty  and  acute  in  mind, 
and  was  nourished  entirely  by  the  milk  of  bis  nurse. 


■  2 


52  JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDEICH  EICHTER. 


THIED  LECTUEE  (WITH  THEEE  SUPPLEMENTS). 

schwarzenbach-on-the-saale — kiss — rector — 
lord's  supper. 

Would  you  believe,  my  friends,  that  Paul  retained  nothing 
in  his  memory  of  all  the  packing-up,  moving,  and  leaving; 
no  parting  either  of  parents  or  children ;  no  object  on  the 
two-miles  journey,  excepting  only  the  above-mentioned 
tailor's  son,  to  whose  pocket  he  intrusted  his  six  drawings 
of  the  kings  for  his  beloved  ?  But  so  it  is  in  childhood 
and  boyhood ;  the  most  trivial  is  retained,  the  most 
important  forgotten  ;  one  knows  not  why,  in  either  case. 
Childhood,  too,  ever  restless  and  impatient,  remembers  the 
departure  lees  than  the  arrival ;  a  child  leaves  ten  times 
more  easily  the  long-accustomed  surroundings  than  the 
more  recent  ones ;  only  in  manhood  does  •  the  exact 
opposite  become  the  case.  For  children  there  are  no 
partings,  for  they  acknowledge  no  past,  but  only  a  present 
filled  with  the  future. 

Schwarzenbach-on-the-Saale  was  indeed  in  the  pos- 
session of  many  things.  A  pastor  and  a  curate  ;  a  rector 
and  a  cantor ;  and  a  parsonage  with  many  little  rooms 
and  two  big  ones.  Opposite  were  two  large  bridges  and  the 
accompanying  Saale,  and  close  by  was  the  schoolhouse,  as 
big  as  (if  not  bigger  than)  the  wholeJoditz  parsonage,  and 
among  the  houses  was  also  a  townhall — not  to  mention 
the  large  empty  castle. 

A  new  rector  entered  on  his  office  just  at  the  same  time 
as  my  father ;  Werner  from  Merseburg,  a  handsome  man 
with  broad  brow  and  high  nose ;  full  of  fire,  and  with 
much  feeling  ;  of  overwhelming  natural  eloquence,  replete 
with  questions,  allegories  and  harangues,  like  Father 
Abraham,  but  quite  without  depth  either  in  languages  or 
other  branches  of  knowledge.  H  e  helped  out  the  poverty 
of  this  reverse  side,  however,  by  a  heart  full  of  enthusiasni 
and  zeal;  his  tongue  was  the  lever  of  our  childish  minds. 


ALTOBIOGEAPHY.  53 

His  plan  of  teaching  was  to  let  one  learn  from  tho 
grammar  only  the  most  necessary  forms  of  inflexion — by 
this  he  understood  only  the  declensions  and  conjugations 
— and  then  to  spring  at  once  to  the  reading  of  some 
author. 

Paul  had  to  make  the  spring  at  once,  far  over  Lange's 
*Colloquia,'  into  '  Cornelius'  and  it  was  successful. 

The  schoolroom,  or  much  more  the  school-ark,  contained 
A,  B,  C  students,  young  spellers,  Latin  learners,  big  and 
little  girls — who  sat  in  tiers  from  the  floor  up  to  the 
wall,  as  if  on  the  shelves  of  a  greenhouse  or  in  an  old 
Koman  theatre — and  the  rector  and  cantor,  together  with  all 
the  ace  impanying  crying,  buzzing,  reading  and  whipping. 
The  Latin  learners  formed,  as  it  wei  e,  a  school  within  the 
school.  Soon  after  Latin,  the  Greek  grammar  also  was 
commenced,  by  learning  the  declensions  and  the  most 
necessary  verbs,  and  then  without  further  delay  we  wei  e 
translated  to  the  transition  of  the  New  Testament. 
Werner,  who  often  in  the  warmth  of  speaking  praised 
himself  so  much  that  he  was  astonished  at  his  OAvn  great- 
ness, thought  this  faulty  method  of  his  was  original,  but 
in  reality  it  was  only  that  of  Basedow.  Paul's  winged 
progress  was  a  fresh  proof  to  him  of  its  success.  About 
a  year  later  a  few  declensions  and  verbs  from  D.inze*s 
Hebrew  Grammar,  written  in  Latin,  were  put  together  to 
form  a  boat-bridge  to  the  First  Book  of  Moses,  the  be- 
ginning of  which — ^just  the  exegesis  threshold  of  young 
Hebraists — was  not  permitted  to  be  read  by  the  un- 
cultivated Jews. 

1  will  immediately  proceed  chronologically  with  the 
life  of  our  hero  when  I  have  cast  a  cursory  view  forward, 
just  for  one  moment,  and  have  shown  you  how  much  he 
suddenly  could  and  had  to  do. 

I  will  then  become  statary  again  immediately. 

He  had  to  translate  the  Greek  and  Hebrew  Testaments 
viva  voce  into  Latin  like  a  Vulyiato  maker.  During  his 
translation  lesson  (ho  was  the  only  Hebrew  scholar  in  tho 
school),  the  rector  had  a  printed  translation  lying  by  his 
side.  When  our  hero  was  not  successful  in  the  analysis 
of  the  words,  a  second  misfortune  often  occurred,  namely, 
the  master  was  no  better  oil*. 


54  JEAN   PAUL   FEIEDKICK   KICHTER. 

The  present  writer  of  novels  was  regularly  in  love  with 
the  Hebrew  grammatical  and  analytical  trash  and  trifling 
— this  too  was  in  reality  a  secret  indication  of  his  love  of 
domesticity — and  borrowed  Hebrew  grammars  from  all 
corners  of  Schwarzenbach,  in  order  to  hoard  up  all  the  in- 
formation on  diacritical  points,  vowels,  accents,  and  so 
on,  which  could  be  served  up  in  the  analysis  of  each  single 
word.  Then  he  sewed  himself  a  quarto  book  together, 
and  began  in  it  with  the  first  word  of  the  first  verse  of  the 
First  Book  of  Moses,  and  wrote  several  pages  of  such  copious 
information  from  all  the  borrowed  grammars  about,  its 
few  letters,  its  vowels  and  the  first  Dagesh  and  Sheva, 
that  at  the  first  words  "In  the  beginning,"  (he  intended 
to  continue  thns  from  chapter  to  chapter),  he  also  made 
an  end,  unless  indeed  it  was  with  the  next.  What  has 
been  written  (in  the  first  Letter-box),  about  Quintiis 
Fixlein's  chase  in  a  folio  Hebrew  Bible  after  larger, 
smaller,  and  reversed  letters  applies  literally  in  all  par- 
ticulars to  Paul's  own  life. 

In  just  as  droll  a  fashion  he  treated  the  now  superan- 
nuated Hofmann,  who,  with  the  German  translation  sen- 
tences or  Latin-rule  examples  was  a  great  cross  Speccius 
for  the  scholars,  by  winding  his  way  like  a  screw, — the 
man  going  deeper  and  deeper  into  Syntaxis  Ornata, — into 
such  endless  participial  straits  that  the  good  rector  had  to 
think  more  about  understanding  than  correcting  him. 

Immediately  after  coming  to  Schwarzenbach — I  am  still 
in  the  cursory — I  had  pianoforte  lessons  from  Gressel  the 
Cantor ;  and  here,  too,  when  he  had  learnt  a  few  dance 
tunes  and  the  usual  choral  chords  and  General  Bass  nota- 
tion,— would  God  but  give  the  poor  boy  for  once  a  thorough 
teacher,  is  my  wish,  however  little  prospect  there  appears 
to  be  anywhere  of  that, — he  fell  into  his  self-absolution 
from  instruction,  into  extemporizing  on  the  piano  and 
collecting  and  playing  off  all  the  pieces  which  were  to  be 
found  anywhere  in  the  place.  Thorough  bass,  the  grammar 
of  music,  he  acquired  by  continual  extemporizing  and 
playing  from  sight,  in  much  the  same  way  as  we  acquire 
the  German  grammar  by  talking. 

At  this  time,  too,  he  applied  himself  to  the  reading  of 
German  literature,  but  as  there  was  none  other  to  be  had 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  55 

in  Schwarzenbach  than  the  romantic  type,  and  of  this 
only  the  worthless  novels  of  the  first  half  of  the  last 
century,  he  built  himself  a  small  Babylonian  tower  out  of 
these  bricks,  though  he  could  only  extract  from  it  one  brick 
at  a  time  to  read.  But  of  all  histories  standing  on  book- 
shelves, not  one — for  Schiller's '  Armenians '  later  produced 
only  half  the  impression — poured  such  oil  of  joy  and 
nectar  through  all  the  veins  of  his  being,— even  to  bodily 
ecstacy— as  old  '  Eobinson  Crusoe  ;'  he  still  remembers  hour 
and  spot,  (it  was  evening,  by  the  window,  looking  on  to  the 
bridge)  when  the  ecstasy  occurred;  and  only  after  some 
time  did  a  second  novel, '  Veil  Bosenstock,'  by  Otto — read 
and  forbidden  by  my  father — repeat  the  half  of  this 
enthusiasm.  Only  as  plagiarist  and  book-thief  did  he 
enjoy  it  from  his  father's  study  so  long  as  his  father  was 
not  there — once  he  read  it  lying  on  his  stomach  in  the 
empty  gallery  during  one  of  his  father's  week-day  sermons. 
I  little  envy  children  now-a-days,  to  whom  the  first  im- 
pression of  the  childlike  and  childish  Eobinson  is  denied 
and  compensated  for  by  the  modern  remodellers  of  the  man, 
who  metamorphose  the  quiet  island  into  a  lecture  room  or  a 
worn-out  snipe  valley,  and  send  the  shipwrecked  Robinson 
about  with  a  precept  book  in  his  hand  and  their  own 
dictata  in  his  mouth,  that  in  every  nook  he  may  found 
a  private  academy  for  the  young,  although  he  has  so  much 
to  do  for  himself  that  it  is  only  with  the  greatest  difficulty 
that  he  can  keep  his  own  life. 

At  this  time,  that  is,  just  after  this,  the  young  curate 
Volkel  begged  the  lad's  father  to  let  him  come  for  two 
hours  every  day  after  dinner  in  order  to  instil  into  him  a 
little  of  all  sorts  from  philosophy  and  geography.  By 
what  means  I,  with  my  village  awkwardness,  became  of 
such  value  to  him,  who  was  not  fired  with  any  particular 
pedagogic  talent,  that  he  sacrificed  his  napping  hour  for 
me,  I  do  not  know. 

In  philosophy,  he  read,  or  more  properly  I  read  to  him, 
that  of  Gottsched,  which,  with  all  its  dryness  and  barren- 
ness, refreshed  me  like  fresh  water  with  its  novelty. 
Then  he  showed  me  a  number  of  towns  and  frontiers  on  a 
map — of  Germany  I  believe ;  but  how  much  of  this  I 
retained  I  do  not  know,  and  search  in  vain  for  it  in  my 


56  JEAN   PAUL   FKIEDllICH   KICHTEE. 

memory  to  this  day  ;  I  dare  aver — what  of  a  truth  sounds 
strong — that  I,  of  all  living  authors  am  perhaps  the  ono 
who  knows  the  least  about  geographical  maps.  An  atlas 
of  maps  would  bear  for  me  a  hell  instead  of  the  mytholo- 
gical heaven,  if  1  had  to  carry  them  in  my  head.  W  hatever 
of  the  geography  of  towns  and  countries  may  by  chance 
remain  hanging  in  it  (the  head)  is  the  little  which  has 
flown  against  it  on  the  way,  on  the  geographical  instruc- 
tion courses,  which,  to  express  myself  in  good  high-school 
Cierman,  partly  the  post-chaises  staterically,  and  partly 
the  Hauderer  (coachman)  cursorily,  have  taken  with  me. 

All  the  more  do  I  thank  the  good  curate  for  his  instruc- 
tion in  German  composition,  which  consisted  of  nothing 
but  instruction  in  so-called  theology.  He  set  me  for 
instance  to  give  the  evidence  without  a  Bible,  of  the 
existence  of  a  God  or  a  Providence,  &c.  To  f^o  this  I 
received  an  octavo  sheet,  on  which  were  written  the 
proofs  and  suggestions  taken  from  Nosselt, '  Jerusalem,'  and 
others,  in  incomplete  sentences,  even  in  single  words 
separated  by  dashes.  The  disguised  suggestions  were 
then  explained  to  me,  and  from  this  leaf,  in  accordance 
with  Goethe's  botanical  theory,  were  my  leaves  developed. 
I  began  each  composition  with  warmth,  and  finished  it  in 
a  glow,  for  at  the  end  there  came  always  the  end  of  the 
world,  of  life,  the  joys  of  heaven,  and  all  that  super- 
abundance which  bursts  from  the  young  vine-shoots  in 
the  warmth  of  spring,  and  which  only  in  autumn  attains 
any  intellectual  value.  To  whom  belong  the  praise  and 
merit  that  these  writing  hours  were  not  hours  of  toil,  but 
of  pleasure  and  freedom,  if  not  to  him  who  chose  the  right 
blofisoming  and  fruit-bearing  themes?  For,  let  anyone 
consider  a  moment  and  compare  these  suggestive  and 
satisfying  exercises  with  those  ordinarily  set  by  school- 
masters, which  are  so  wide  and  undefined,  so  uncongenial  to 
the  young  heart,  or  which  reach  so  far  beyond  the  sphere  of 
youthful  life — in  jest  I  should  like  to  give  you  a  thousand 
in  a  note  * — that  I  wish  seriously  that  some  man  with 

*  Out  of  such  Tiniversal,  cold,  empty  siabjects,  demanding  everything 
and  nothing, — for  example,  "  Praise  of  Industry,"  ''  Importance  of 
Youth,"  the  richest,  maturest  head  could  hardly  hatch  anything  living. 
Other  Bubjei.-ts  again,  too  broad,  as  "  Comparison  of  tlie  Heroes  of 


A^rrOBIOGRAPHY.  57 

leisure  and  a  knowledge  of  youth  would  sit  himself  down, 
in  spite  of  all  the  beautiful  thoughts  and  elaborations 
which  he  might  otherwise  produce,  and  would  write 
nothing  for  the  present  but  a  small  volume  of  prize 
subjects,  aiTanged  after  the  pattern  of  the  innumerable 
dissertations  on  the  Sunday  texts,  for  teachers,  whose  sole 
work  would  be  to  choose  among  them  those  which  the} 
would  give  to  their  pupils. 

Better  perhaps  than  all  subjects  are  none  at  all.  Let  the 
youth  choose  each  time  that  subject,  as  a  mistress,  for 
which  his  heart  is  warm  and  full,  and  with  which  alone  he 
is  able  to  create  that  which  has  life.  Leave  the  young 
spirit  free  with  a  few  hours  and  a  few  sheets  of  paper — 
which  maturer  writers  require  too — that  he  may  freely 
give  forth  his  tones  undisturbed  by  your  hand,  otherwise 
he  is  a  bell  standing  firmly  on  the  ground  and  unable  to 
sound  until  hung  freely  in  the  air. 

But  men  are  thus  throughout  all  offices  up  from  the  lowest ; 
they  find  the  greater  glory  in  making  servile  machines 
out  of  free  spirits,  thus  showing  their  creating,  governing, 
and  producing  powers ;  they  think  to  give  proof  of  this,  if 
they  are  able  to  bring  into  the  same  track  and  couple  on 
to  the  intellectual  machine  next  above  them  an  intermediate 
midway  machine,  and  to  the  intermediate  one  to  couple 
another,  until  at  length  there  appears  a  mother  Marion- 
ette leading  a  Marionette  daughter,  who  again  in  her  turn 
is  able  to  carry  a  poodle — all  is  only  a  couj)ling  together 
by  the  same  machine  master — God  ;  the  free  will  only  rear 
the  free ;  the  devil,  the  unfree,  will  rear  only  his  like. 

I  would  not  exchange  my  weekly  exercises  for  any  of 
those  of  the  present  time,  how  much  soever  these  may 
enlighten  the  world,  particularly  as  the  subjects  opened 
the  lists  to  my  philosophizing  tendency  and  let  it  have  its 
nin  out ;  a  tendency  which  had  already  sought  to  overflow 
from  my  small  head  into  a  thin  octavo  booklet  in  which 


Antiquity,"  "  Weighing  of  the  Old  Forms  of  Religion,**  are  ostrich- 
eggs  on  which  the  pupil  with  too  short  wings  sits  and  broods  in  vain, 
making  none  worm  but  himself.  Between  these  two  kinds  are  the 
better  ones,  rich  in  sensuous  and  historical  material,  such  as  "  Descrip- 
tion of  a  Conflagration,  of  the  Last  Day,  of  the  Deluge ;  Proof  of  its 
Non-universality." 


58  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDKICH   RICHTER. 

Stieing  and  Hearing  endeavoured  and  thought  to  give  a 
logical  account  of  themselves,  and  of  which  1  related  a  part 
to  my  father,  who  blamed  and  misunderstood  me  just  as 
little  as  I  did  myself.  Can  one,  then,  repeat  too  often  to 
the  teacher  of  youth — very  often  must  I  have  said  it 
\  already — that /all  hearing  and  reading  does  not  strengthen 
land  stimulate  the  spirit  half  so  much  as  writing  and 
\ speaking Jbecause  the  former,  like  conception  in  the  female, 
exercises  only  the  receptive  faculties,  while  the  latter  like 
begetting  in  the  male,  demands  and  brings  into  action  the 
creative  powers.  Do  not  the  translators  of  the  most 
learned  and  pithy  writers, — for  example,  Ebert,  the  trans- 
lator of  Young, — keep  on  all  their  lives  writing  their  pre- 
faces, notes  and  poems  with  inborn  washiness,  when  one 
might  have  expected  a  little  improvement,  since  of  all 
reading  tianslating  is  the  most  repeated  as  well  as  the 
most  accurate  and  penetrating,  and  thus  the  translator  of 
a  work  of  merit  enjoys  it  more  and  gets  at  the  kernel 
better  than  any  other  reader. 

Eeading  is  like  collecting  for  the  school  money-box  or 
the  poor-bag;  writing  is  the  founding  of  a  mint,  the 
stamping  die  enriches  one  more  than  the  bell- bag. 
Writing,  like  a  Socratic  midwifery  which  one  practises 
on  oneself,  is  to  reading  as  speaking  is  to  hearing.  In 
England  and  among  people  of  the  court  and  world,  talking 
is  a  means  of  education,  and  helps  out  the  paucity  of  the 
reading. 

Finally  I  staked  these  lessons  with  the  curate  on  a  gacae 
at  chess  and  lost,  because — we  did  not  play.  To  explain  ; 
the  curate  would  sometimes  conclude  the  lesson  in  geo- 
graphy with  one  in  chess,  still  to  this  day  my  favourite 
game,  though  in  it  and  all  games  I  have  remained  the 
beginner  that  I  was  when  I  first  made  my  debut.  Once  I 
went  to  my  lesson  in  spite  of  a  headache,  because  a  game 
at  chess  had  been  promised,  and  as,  through  forgetfulness, 
the  game  never  came,  so  I  also  never  came  again.  That 
my  father  silently  allowed  this  desertion  of  mine  unoc- 
casioned  by  one  single  word,  is  more  difficult  of  compre- 
hension to  me  than  the  other  natural  circumstance  that  I 
was  a  fool  and  fled  from  the  curate  at  the  same  time  that 
I  continued  to  love  him.     I  was  still  very  pleased  to  act 


A.UTOBIOGRAPHY.  59 

the  little  foot-messenger  between  him  and  my  father,  and 
with  glances  of  love  and  joyfully  beating  pulses  would  see 
him  turn  into  our  house  after  almost  all  the  baptisms  (for 
this  reason  the  baptism  bell  tolled  a  joyous  mass  on  my 
ears)  to  chat  away  a  half  or  the  whole  of  the  evening 
while  I  read  or  worked  at  the  table ;  but,  as  I  have  said,  I 
had  got  the  chessboard  in  my  head,  and  kept  away. 
Heavens !  who  is  it  that  gathers  into  the  best  honey  cells 
of  mine  and  of  many  another  poetical  and  feminine  nature 
Buch  a  summer  honey  (if  not  honey  vinegar)  of  love  and  ill- 
will,  such  a  conflicting  mish-mash,  which  often  poisons 
and  cankers  the  most  beautiful  days,  yes,  and  the  most  beau- 
tiful hearts,  perhaps  ?  Truly,  could  one  often  but  add  an 
additional  half  grain  of  brain-aether  or  reason  to  the 
warmest  hearts,  I  should  know  of  nothing  better  than  the 
hottest  love,  but,  as  it  is,  the  sweetness  congeals  to  bitter 
lees  and  its  own  reverse. 

Kiss. 

As  I  lost  my  heart  before  in  a  churcn  pew,  so  now  I 
could  not  do  otherwise  than  fall  in  love  up  the  raised 
school  benches — for  she  sat  quite  up  at  the  top,  Katherine 
Barin — with  her  dainty,  round,  red,  little,  small-pox- 
marked  face  and  sparkling  eyes,  and  the  pretty  haste  with 
which  she  spoke  and  ran  off.  At  the  school  carnival, 
which  occupied  the  whole  of  the  forenoon  of  Shrove 
Tuesday,  and  consisted  in  dancing  and  playing,  I  had 
the  pleasure  of  dancing  the  irregular  hop- dance  and  thus, 
as  it  were,  of  practising  and  dancing  beforehand  the 
regular  dance.  Yes,  too,  at  the  game  of  "  How  do  you  like 
your  neighbour?"  where,  on  a  favourable  answer  one  is 
ordered  to  kiss,  and  on  an  unfavourable  one  to  run  oif, 
amid  accoUades  from  the  knotted  handkerchief,  and  make 
place  for  others,  I  carried  off  plenty  of  the  latter ;  a  gold- 
beating,  by  which  my  love,  like  pure  gold,  inoreased,  and 
an  entertaining  variety  always  prevailed,  as  she  invariably 
forbad  me  the  court,  and  I  always  called  her  to  it. 

All  these  malicious  desertions  {desertioiies  malitioscB) 
could  not  deprive  me  of  the  bliss  of  seeing  her  every  day, 
as,  with  little  white  apron  and  cap,  she  ran  over  the  h>ng 
bridge  towards  the  parsonage,  where  I  weis  at  the  window 


60  JEAN  PAITL  FKIEDRICH  EICHTER. 

looking  out.  To  catcli  her  and  not  so  much  to  say  as  to 
give  to  her  something  sweet,  a  mouthful  of  fruit  for  example, 
this,  as  far  as  I  know  I  was  never  able  to  do,  let  me  run 
as  quickly  as  I  would  through  the  yard  and  down  the  few 
steps  to  receive  her  in  her  flight  past.  But  I  enjoyed 
enough  in  being  able  to  love  her  on  the  bridge  from  tbe 
window,  which,  I  think,  was  near  enough  for  me  who 
usually  stood  with  heart  and  mouth  behind  long  seeing- 
and  hearing-trumpets.  Distance  is  less  harmful  to  true 
love  than  proximity;  if  I  had  got  a  shj^h^.  of  Venus  in  the 
planet  Venus,  1  should  have  loved  the  heavenly  being 
ardently,  particularly  as  at  such  a  distance  she  would  be 
very  bewitching  with  her  charms,  and  I  would  have 
chosen  it  without  hesitation  to  be  revered  as  my  morning 
and  evening  star. 

I  now  have  the  pleasure  of  freeing  from  their  error  all 
those  who  expect  a  mere  repetition  of  the  Juditz  love  affair 
in  the  Schwarzenbach  one;  and  of  announcing  to  them 
that  I  brought  it  to  something.  One  winter  evening  when 
1  had  already  provided  my  princess-tax  of  sweet  gifts, 
which  usually  lacked  only  the  recipient,  the  pastor's  son, 
who  was  the  worst  boy  among  all  my  school  companions, 
persuaded  me  to  a  forbidden,  deed  of  daring.  While  a 
call  from  the  curate  occupied  my  father,  I  left  the  parson- 
ai;e  in  the  dark,  crossed  the  bridge  (which  I  had  never 
dared  before)  went  straight  up  to  the  house  where  the 
beloved  one  lived  with  her  poor  mother  in  a  little  corner- 
room,  and  there  made  my  way  into  a  kind  of  tap-room 
down  below.  Whether  Katherine  was  down  there  by 
chance  and  was  going  upstairs  again,  or  whether  the 
rogue  with  his  ofiBcious  planning  had  enticed  her  half-way 
down  under  some  pretence  or  other,  in  short,  how  it 
happened  that  I  found  her  on  the  stairs,  has  all  become  a 
dreamy  recollection  to  me,  for  a  Present,  which  flashes 
forth  suddenly,  renders  dim  in  the  memory  all  that  has 
preceded  it.  Hurriedly  as  a  thief,  I  first  gave  her  my 
food -presents,  and  then  I,  who  never  in  Joditz  could  come 
to  the  heaven  of  a  first  kiss,  and  never  dared  to  touch  the 
beloved  hand,  for  the  first  time  pressed  a  long-loved  beitjg 
to  my  heart  and  lips.  I  know  not  what  more  to  say ;  it 
was  a  single  pearly  minute,  which  had  never  been  before, 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  61 

and  never  came  again  ;  a  whole  longing  past  and  a  future 
dream  were  compressed  into  one  moment :  and  in  the 
darkness  behind  my  closed  eyes  the  tire  work  of  life  was 
displayed  for  one  moment  and  llien  was  gone. 

Like  H  clairvoyant,  I  return  from  heaven  back  again  to 
earth,  remarking  only  that  the  Ku|)rechr  followed,  since  he 
had  not  preceded,  this  second  Christmas  festivity,  for  on 
Dfiy  way  home,  1  already  found  the  messenger,  and  was 
soundly  scolded  when  I  got  there  for  running  out.  Such 
a  hailstorm  and  dross-stream  fall  usually  with  the  hot  silver 
beams  of  the  sun  of  happiness.  What  did  it  matter  to 
me  ?  The  stream  of  words  could  not  mar  my  paradise,  for 
does  it  not  bloom  to  this  very  day,  even  to  this  pen  and 
forth  from  it  ? 

It  was,  as  I  have  said,  the  first  kiss,  and  at  the  same 
time,  I  believe,  the  last,  unless, — for  she  still  lives, — I 
purposely  make  a  journey  to  Schwarzenbach  and  give  her 
a  second.  As  usual,  I  contented  myself  throughout  my 
Schwarzenbach  life  with  my  telegraphic  love,  which,  too, 
had  to  sustain  and  reply  to  itself  without  an  answering 
telegraph. 

But  truly  none  blames  the  good  maiden  less  than  I  do 
that  she  then  kept  silence  and  does  so  still — after  her 
husband's  death ;  for  in  later  life  I  have  always  had  to 
find  my  way  slowly  to  the  unknown  heart  and  its  love  ; 
it  was  of  no  use  that  I  immediately  stood  there  with 
ready  face  and  exterior;  afterwards  I  always  had  to 
underlay  these  bodily  charms  with  the  intellectual  for 
them  sufficiently  to  glitter,  dazzle,  and  kindle  the 
fire. 

But  this  was  just  the  defect  in  my  innocent  love  time, 
that,  without  intercourse  with  the  loved  one,  without 
conversation  or  prelude,  I  suddenly,  with  barren  exterior, 
showed  the  whole  of  my  love  bursting  forth,  in  short, 
that  I  stood  before  her  like  the  Judas-tree  which  produces 
its  blossoms  without  the  intervention  of  branches  and 
leaves. 


62  JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDEICH  RICHTER. 


Joke  with  the  Rector. 

As  the  Joke-playing  Society*  knew  that  the  rector 
read  the  newspaper  in  school,  and  introduced  the  current 
events  in  his  school  sermons,  they  sent  him  an  old 
number  of  the  Erlanger  Bealzeitung,  which  he  took  in, 
containing  an  account  of  the  horrors  of  the  terrible 
famine  in  Italy,  particularly  in  Naples.  The  date  they 
had  covered  up  well  enough  by  dropping  an  ink  blot  on 
it.  All  heard  into  their  rooms  how,  inflamed  by  the 
Fidihus  paperf  (scarcely  could  he  await  the  withdrawal 
of  the  organist),  he  burst  forth  with  his  exposition,  and 
how  vividly  he  brought  before  the  eyes  of  the  Schwar- 
zenbach  youth  in  fire  colours — the  Erlanger  writer  gave 
only  the  water  colours  — the  begging,  shrieking,  fainting, 
and  starving  in  all  the  streets,  until  it  became  doubtful 
whether  they  would  return  home  with  more  burning 
tears  or  hunger.  And  in  reality  in  such  descriptions  one 
hardly  believes  that  there  is  still  anything  left  to  eat  on 
the  earth.  Each  one  may  imagine  for  himself  under 
what  kind  of  triumphal  gates  (or  on  what  triumphal 
beds)  the  good  herald  of  hunger  was  taken  that  evening 
by  the  Joke-playing  Society  for  his  touching  and  warning 
words,  when  they  had  seen  the  children  and  questioned 
them  about  it.  I  can  give  no  account,  for  I  heard  only 
dimly  and  some  time  afterwards  of  the  recall  of  the  paper. 
Good,  well-meaning  old  rector!  be  not  much  ashamed  or 
angry  with  birds  of  joke  or  prey,  who  wish  to  pounce 
down  on  your  pulpit-doves!  The  holy  dove  had  still 
hovered  and  brooded  over  our  hearts  with  warm  wings. 
For  the  warmed  heart  it  is  just  the  same  whether  it  has 
trembled  with  the  pulses  of  compassion  for  a  near  or  a 
distant  famine. 

*  This  society  consisted  of  the  friends  of  the  rector  who  permitted 
such  Jokes  between  themselves  as  the  one  here  related, 

t  Properly  a  small  strip  of  paper  used  for  lighting  cigars,  &c. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  63 


Thb  Lord's  Supper. 


The  Lord's  Supper  is  considered  in  the  country,  or  more 
properly  among  good  Christians,  not  merely  as  a  Christian 
moral  /0,7a  virilis ;  not  as  in  towns  amongst  girls,  less  as 
the  putting  on  the  nun's  clothing,  than  the  young  lady's ; 
but  it  is  the  highest  and  first  spiritual  act,  the  entrance  on 
citizenship  in  God's  city.  It  is  only  now  that  the  former 
water-baptism  becomes  a  real  fire-baptism,  the  first 
sacrament  rises  again  in  the  second  glorified  and  more 
living.  The  children  of  a  pastor,  who  have  been  eye-  and 
ear-witnesses  of  the  preparation  of  others  so  often  for  this 
Sunday  approach  it  with  the  greater  reverence.  This 
reverence  rose  still  higher  in  me  on  account  of  the  post- 
ponement of  the  ceremony  for  a  year,  as  my  father  did 
not  consider  that  the  legal  age  of  twelve  years  had  com- 
pletely elapsed  by  the  21st  of  March. 

Add  now  to  these  days  of  religious  warmth,  a  fire- 
preacher,  as  was  our  rector,  who  presented  to  our  souls 
the  awful  conditions  peculiar  to  this  religious  act,  that 
the  unrepentant  who  partakes  of  the  sacrament,  like  a 
perjurer,  eats  his  Hell  instead  of  Heaven,  and  that  when 
a  Kedeemer  and  Saint  enters  into  the  impure  sinner,  the 
saving  power  of  his  presence  must  be  turned  into  a 
poisoning  power.  Warm  tears,  which  he,  too,  shed  with 
us,  were  the  least  which  his  heartfelt  words  drew  forth 
from  myself  and  the  rest ;  burning  repentance  for  the 
past  and  passionate  vows  for  a  blameless  future  filled  our 
breasts  and  continued  their  work  there  after  he  had 
ceased  to  speak.  How  often  did  I  go  to  the  garret  before 
the  Confession  Saturday,  and  kneel  down  to  repent  and 
atone.  And  how  sweet  it  was  on  the  Confession  day 
itself  to  ask  forgiveness  with  stammering  lips  and  over- 
flowing heart  for  one's  faults  from  all  the  dear  ones, 
parents,  and  teachers,  and  thus  to  atone  for  them  and 
absolve  oneself. 

On  this  evening  there  came,  too,  a  mild,  light,  clear  heaven 
of  peace  over  my  soul,  an  unutterable  never-returning 
blessedness  in  feeling  myself  quite  clean,  purified  and  freect 
from  sin ;   in  having  made  with  God  and  man  a  joyful 


64  JEAN  PAUL   FRIEDKTCH  RICHTER. 

far-reaching  peace,  and  still,  from  these  evening  hours  of 
mild  and  warm  soul-rest,  I  looked  onward  to  the  heavenly 
enthusiasm  and  rapture  at  the  altar  next  morning. 

0  blessed  time !  when  one  has  stripped  off  the  unclean 
past,  and  stands  pure  and  white,  free  and  fresh  in  the 
present,  and  thus  steps  forth  courageously  into  the  future. 
But  to  whom  but  children  can  this  time  return  ?  In  the 
happy  time  of  childhood  this  complete  peace  of  soul  is 
more  easy  to  gain,  because  the  circle  of  sacrifices  which  it 
demands  is  smaller  and  the  sacrifices  themselves  less  im- 
portant, while  the  complicated  and  widened  circumstances 
of  later  years,  either  through  deficiencies  or  delay  in 
complete  resignation,  admit  the  heavenly  rainbow  of  peace 
only  incomplete  and  not  rounded  to  a  perfect  circle,  as  in 
the  time  of  youth.  In  the  twelfth  year  enthusiasm  can 
render  one  perfectly  pure,  but  not  so  in  age.  The  youth, 
too,  and  the  maiden  with  all  their  fiery  impulses  have  less 
to  overcome  in  their  circle,  and  have  an  easier  and  shorter 
way  to  the  highest  moral  purity,  than  that  which  the  man 
or  w-oman  have  to  traverse  with  their  colder  and  more 
selfish  strivings,  through  the  wilderness  of  troubles,  cares, 
and  toils.  The  true  man  is,  at  some  period  in  his  earliest 
time,  a  diamond  of  the  first  water,  crystal  clear,  and 
without  colour,  then  he  becomes  one  of  second  quality  and 
glitters  with  many  colours,  until  at  last  he  darkens  into  a 
coloured  stone. 

On  Sunday  morning  the  boys  and  girls,  adorned  for  the 
sacrificial  altar,  met  at  the  parsonage  for  the  solemn 
entrance  into  the  church  amid  singing  and  bell-ringing. 
All  this,  together  with  the  festive  attire  and  the  nosegays, 
and  the  narkened  fragrant  birch-trees,  both  at  home  and 
in  the  church,  became  for  the  young  soul  a  powerful 
breeze  in  its  outspread  wings,  which  were  already  raised 
and  in  motion.  Even  during  the  long  sermon  the  heart 
expanded  with  its  fire,  and  inward  struggles  were  carried 
on  against  all  thoughts  which  were  worldly  or  not 
sufficiently  holy. 

A  t  length  I  received  the  bread  from  my  father  and  the 
cup  from  my  purely  loved  teacher,  but  the  ceremony  did 
not  receive  any  additional  value  from  the  thought  of 
what  these  two  were  to  me ;  my  heart  and  mind  and  soul 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  65 

were  devoted  alone  to  heaven,  to  happiness,  and  to  the  re- 
ception of  the  Most  Holy,  which  was  to  unite  itself  vnth 
my  being,  and  my  rapture  rose  to  a  physical  lightning- 
feeling  of  miraculons  union. 

I  thus  left  the  altar  with  a  clear  blue  infinite  heaven 
in  my  heart ;  this  heaven  revealed  itself  to  me  by  an  un- 
limited, stainless  tender  love  which  I  now  felt  for  all,  all 
mankind.  To  this  day  I  have  preserved  within  my  •  heart 
with  loving  and  youthful  freshness  the  remembrance  of 
the  happiness  when  I  looked  on  the  church  members  with 
love,  and  took  them  all  to  my  innermost  heart.  The 
maiden  companions  at  the  holy  altar  with  their  bridal 
wreaths  became  not  only  dearer,  but  also  more  holy,  to  me 
as  the  brides  of  Christ,  and  I  included  them  all  in  such  a 
wide,  pure  love,  that  even  my  beloved  Katharina  as  far  as 
I  can  remember  was  not  otherwise  loved  than  the  rest. 

The  whole  earth  remained  for  me  throughout  the  day 
an  unlimited  love-repast,  and  the  whole  tissue  and  web 
of  life  appeared  to  me  to  be  an  iEolian  or  setherial  harp 
played  by  the  breath  of  love.  When  even  the  misanthrope 
can  extract  an  artificial  delight  from  his  universal  dislike, 
of  what  indescribably  sweet  happiness  must  be  a  universal 
love  for  all  hearts  in  the  beautiful  time  of  youth,  untram- 
melled and  untainted  by  circumstances,  the  horizon  of 
which  is  still  limited,  the  arms  short  but  the  ardour  so 
much  the  more  intense.  And  shall  we  not  allow  ourselves 
the  joy  of  dreaming  out  the  dream  of  this  overflowing 
heaven,  which  would  receive  us  if,  in  a  higher  and  hotter 
locus  of  a  second  youth,  we  should  grasp  a  larger  spiritual 
world,  loving  with  higher  power,  and  should  widen  the 
heart  from  life  to  life  for  the  All. 

But  in  inconstant  man  all  else  remains  more  easily  on 
the  surface  than  the  purest  and  the  best,  as  in  quicksilver 
all  metals  remain  at  the  top — the  gold  alone  sinks.  Life, 
like  the  sun  (according  to  Goethe),  admits  no  white.  After 
a  few  days  this  precious  consciousness  of  innocence  deserted 
me,  for  I  thought  that  I  had  sinned  in  throwing  a  stone 
and  wrestling  with  a  schoolfellow,  though  I  did  neither 
out  of  ill-feeling,  but  in  harmless  love  of  play.  But  eternal 
thanks  are  due  for  ever  to  the  all-kind  spirit. 

Every  holiday  is  followed  by  working  days,  but  we  go 

I  ¥ 


66  JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRICH  RICHTER. 

into  tliem  newly-clad,  and  tlie  past  holiday  leads  us  on 
over  them  to  a  fresh  one.  This  spring  festivity  of  the 
heart  returned  later  in  the  years  of  youth,  but  only  as  a 
quiet,  serene  sabbath,  when  for  the  first  time  the  great  old 
stoical  spirits  of  Plutarch,  Epictetus,  and  Antoninus  arose 
and  appeared  before  me,  and  freed  me  from  all  the  pains  of 
this  earth  and  all  anger ;  but  from  this  one  Sabbalh  I  hope 
I  have  gathered  together  a  whole  year  of  Sabbaths,  or  am 
able  to  make  up  that  which  may  still  be  wanting. 


LEVANA; 

OR, 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  EDUCATION. 


V2 


TO    HER    MAJESTYJ, 

CAROLINE,   QUEEN   OF   BAVARIA. 

WITH 

THE  PROFOUNDEST  RESPECT  OF 
THE  AUTHOR. 


Most  Gracious  Queen  ! 

The  author  would  consecrate  Levana  to  mothers  by  your 
royal  name— as  the  banners  which  a  princess  has  worked 
receive  fresh  victorious  power. 

Your  Majesty  will  graciously  pardon  the  dedication  of  a 
work  which  Germany,  by  the  approbation  expressed  in  the 
demand  for  a  new,  improved  edition,  has  already  dedicated 
to  a  Princess,  who,  in  its  best  parts,  will  but  find  her  own 
recollections. 

If,  even  in  the  lowest  ranks,  a  mother's  heart  be 
woman's  honour, — the  sun  which  gently  warms  and  dries 
the  dewdrops  of  early  tears, — this  sun  delights  the  beholder 
most  when  it  stands  highest  and  cherishes  the  distant 
future,  and  when  a  noble  mother  multiplies  her  heart  as 
well  as  her  beauty,  and  blesses  distant  ages  and  countries 
with  her  image. 


70  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   KICHTER. 

This  delight  becomes  still  greater  if  the  mother  be  also 
the  mother  of  her  country,  and  raise  her  sceptre  like  a 
magic  \\'and  which  converts  tears  of  sorrow  into  tears  of 
joy  ere  it  dries  them. 

Should  the  profound  respect  of  a  subject  forbid  him  to 
express  this  joy  in  a  dedication  ? 

With  most  profound  respect, 

Your  Majesty's 
Most  obedient,  humble  servant, 

Jean  Paul  1'r.  Kichter. 


AUTHOR'S    PEEFACE. 


NovERRE  only  required  from  a  good  director  of  the  ballet 
— besides  the  art  of  dancing — geometry,  music,  poetry, 
painting,  and  anatomy.  But  to  write  upon  education, 
means  to  write  upon  almost  everything  at  once ;  for  it 
has  to  care  for  and  watch  over  the  development  of  an 
entire,  though  miniature,  world  in  little — a  microcosm  of 
the  microcosm.  All  the  energies  mth  which  nations  have 
laboured  and  signalized  themselves  once  existed  as  germs 
in  the  hand  of  the  educator.  If  we  carried  the  subject 
still  farther  every  century,  every  nation,  and  even  every 
boy  and  eveiy  girl,  woidd  require  a  distinct  system  of 
education,  a  different  primer,  and  domestic  French 
governess,  &c. 

If,  consequently,  on  a  subject  like  this,  only  acta 
sanctorum,  or  more  correctly,  sanctificandorum  (acts  less  of 
saints  than  of  those  to  be  made  saints)  can  be  written,  and 
if  a  folio  be  nothing  more  than  a  fragment,  there  cannot 
be,  on  such  an  inexhaustible  subject,  one  book  too  much, 
even  after  the  best,  except  the  worst ;  and  where  frag- 
ments alone  are  possible,  all  that  are  possible  complete 
the  whole. 

The  Author  trusts  thus  to  excuse  his  boldness  as  well 
as  his  poverty ;  for  both,  as  in  the  state,  are  nearly 
connected.  Ho  has  not  read  every  thing  which  has  been 
written  upon  education,  but  here  and  there  something. 
First  and  last  he  names  Rousseau's  Emile.  No  preceding 
work  can  be  compared  with  his ;  the  succeeding  imitators 
and  transcribers  seem  to  resemble  him  more.  Not  Rous- 
seau's individual  rules,  many  of  which  may  be  erroneous 
without  injury  to  the  whole,  but  tho  spirit  of  education 
which  fills  and  animates  tho  work  has  shaken  to  their 
foundations  and  purified  all  tho  school- rooms  and  even  tho 


72  JEAN   PAUL   FKIEDKICH   RICHTER.      [PREFACE, 

nurseries  in  Europe.  In  no  previous  work  on  educatiop 
was  the  ideal  so  richly  and  beautifully  combined  with 
actual  observation  as  in  his.  He  was  a  man,  could 
therefore  easily  become  a  child,  and  so  he  manifested  and 
saved  the  nature  of  children.  Basedow  was  his  intelligent 
translator  and  publisher  in  Germany — this  land  of  peda- 
gogopaedists  (of  education  of  children's  educators)  and  of 
love  or  children — and  Pestalozzi  is  now  confirming  Kousseau 
among  the  people. 

Individual  rules,  without  the  spirit  of  education, 
rese:uble  a  dictionary  without  a  grammar  of  the  language. 
A  book  of  rules  is  not  merely  incapable  of  exhausting  and 
distinguishing  the  infinite  variety  of  individual  dis- 
positions and  circumstances ;  but,  even  granting  it  were 
perfect  itself  and  able  to  make  others  perfect,  it  yet  would 
but  be  like  a  system  of  remedies  labouring  to  counteract 
some  one  symptom  of  a  disease ;  recommending,  for  instance, 
something  of  a  reducing  nature  to  be  taken  before  faint- 
ing, and  to  prevent  tingling  in  the  ears  and  unnatural 
brilliancy  of  eye ;  a  tonic  to  cure  paleness  and  coldness 
of  the  face  ;  an  aperient  for  nausea.  But  this  is  worthless ' 
Do  not,  like  common  cultivators,  water  the  individual 
branches,  but  the  roots,  and  they  will  moisten  and  unfold 
the  rest.  Wisdom  and  morality  are  no  ants'  colonies  of 
separate,  co-operating  workmen,  but  organic  parents  of  the 
mental  future  which  only  require  life-giving  nourishment. 
We  merely  reverse  the  ignorance  of  the  savages,  who 
sowed  gunpowder  instead  of  making  it,  when  we  attempt 
to  compound  what  can  only  be  developed. 

But  although  the  spirit  of  education,  always  watching 
over  the  whole,  is  nothing  more  than  an  endeavour  to 
liberate,  by  means  of  a  free  man,  the  ideal  human  being 
which  lies  concealed  in  every  child ;  and  though,  in  the 
application  of  the  divine  to  the  child's  nature,  it  must 
scorn  some  useful  things,  some  seasonable,  individual, 
or  immediate  ends ;  yet  it  must  incorporate  itself  in  the 
most  definite  applications,  in  order  to  be  clearly  mani- 
fested. 

Here  the  Author  differs — but  to  his  philosophical  dis- 
advantage— from  those  transcendental  superintendents  of 
the  school-room  slates,  who  write  thereon  with  so  round 


FIRST   ED.]  LEVANA.  73 

a  piece  of  chalk  that  one  may  find  in  their  broad  strokes 
whatever  one  desires,  and  who  lay  down  a  complete 
Brownian  system  of  education  in  the  two  words — strong, 
weak ;  though,  indeed.  Brown's  disciple,  Schmidt,  only 
uttered  one  word — strong.  Dr.  Tamponet  declared  that 
he  would  trace  heresies  in  the  Lord's  Prayer,  if  any  one 
desired  it ;  our  age,  on  the  contrary,  knows  how  to  find 
a  Lord's  Prayer  in  every  heresy.  A  mother  who  has  a 
particular  child  to  educate  can  certainly  extract  no  advan- 
tage from  such  philosophical  indifierentism;  although  that 
class  of  fine,  high-sounding  compilations  always  bears 
witness  to  a  certain  amount  of  artistic  talent  in  their 
sonorousness  and  their  theft;  hence.  Gall  justly  found 
for  this  sense  a  place  between  the  organs  of  music  and 
stealing. 

But  this  language  does  not  belong  to  the  Preface,  and 
the  object  of  this  work  has  forbidden  it  to  find  a  place  in 
the  book  itself;  wherefore,  this  may  be  regarded  in  form 
as  my  most  serious  production,  to  which  only  a  short, 
occasional,  comic  Appendix  shall  be  added. 

The  reader  will  please  to  take  it  patiently  if  he  find 
what  has  been  already  printed  again  printed  here.  What 
has  been  printed  is  necessary'-  as  the  bond  and  bast-matting 
of  what  has  not  been  printed ;  but  the  bast-matting  must 
not  cover  the  whole  garden  instead  of  merely  tying  up  the 
trees.  But  there  are  two  still  better  excuses.  Kno^ni 
rules  in  education  gain  new  force  if  new  experience  verify 
them.  The  Author  has  three  times  been  in  the  position 
of  trying  them  upon  different  children  of  all  ages  and 
talents ;  and  he  now  enjoys  with  his  own  the  pedagogic 
jti8  trium  liberorum  (law  of  three  children) ;  and  every  other 
person's  experience,  related  in  this  book,  has  been  made 
nis  own.  Secondly,  printing  ink  now  is  like  sympathetic 
ink,  it  becomes  as  quickly  invisible  as  visible ;  wherefore 
it  is  good  to  repeat  old  thoughts  in  the  newest  books, 
because  the  old  works  in  which  they  stand  are  not  read. 
New  translations  of  many  tniths,  as  of  foreign  standard 
w';rks,  must  be  given  forth  every  half  century.  And, 
indeed,  I  wish  that  even  old  German  standard  books  were 
turned  into  new  German  from  time  to  time,  and  so  could 
find  their  way  into  the  circulating  libraries. 


74  JEAN   PAUL   FEIEDRICH    KICHTER.      [PKEI'ACE, 

Why  are  there  flower  and  weed  gleanings  of  every  thing, 
but  no  wine  or  corn  gleanings  of  the  innumerable  works 
on  education?  Why  should  one  single  good  observation 
or  rule  be  lost  because  it  is  imprisoned  in  some  monstrous 
folio,  or  blown  away  in  some  single  sheet  ?  For  dwarfs 
and  giants,  even  in  books,  do  not  live  long.  Our  age, 
this  balloon,  or  air-ship,  which,  by  simultaneous  lighting 
of  new  lamps  and  throwing  out  of  old  ballast,  has  constantly 
mounted  higher  and  higher,  might  now,  I  should  think, 
<5ease  to  throw  out  and  rather  lovingly  endeavour  to  collect 
than  to  disperse  the  old. 

HoT^ever  little  so  disjointed  a  collection  of  thoughts 
could  teach  rules,  it  would  yet  arouse  and  sharpen  the 
educational  sense  from  which  they  originally  sprung. 
Therefore  every  mother — still  better  every  bride — ought 
to  read  the  many-volumed  and,  in  another  sense,  many- 
sided  revision  of  education  to  which  no  nation  can  oppose 
any  thing  similar ;  she  should  read  it,  and  cut  and  polish 
herself,  like  a  precious  stone,  by  it  on  every  side,  so  that 
her  individuality  of  character  may  all  the  more  readily 
discover,  protect,  revere  and  cherish  the  dim  manifestay> 
tions  of  it  in  her  child. 

Something  very  different  from  such  a  progressive 
cabinet  of  noble  thoughts,  or  even  from  my  weak  LirvANA, 
with  her  fragments  in  her  arms,  is  the  usual  kind  of  com- 
plete system  of  education  which  one  person  after  another 
has  written,  and  will  write.  It  is  difficult — I  mean  the 
end,  not  the  means.  For  it  is  very  easy  to  proceed  with 
bookbinder's  and  bookmaker's  paste,  and  fasten  together  a 
thousand  selected  thoughts  with  five  of  your  own,  espe- 
cially if  you  conscientiously  remark  in  the  preface  that 
you  have  availed  yourself  of  the  labours  of  your  prede- 
cessors, yet  make  no  mention  of  one  in  the  work  itself, 
but  sell  such  a  miniature  library  in  one  volume  to  the 
reader  as  a  mental  facsimile  of  yourself.  How  much 
better  in  this  case  were  a  hole-maker  than  a  hole-hider ! 
How  much  better  were  it  if  associated  authors  (I  mean 
those  friendly  hundreds  who  move  along  one  path  uttering 
precisely  the  same  sound)  entirely  died  out, — as  Humboldt 
tells  us  that  in  the  tropical  regions  there  are  none  of  those 
sociable  plants  which  make  our  forests  monotonous,  but 


FIRST   ED.]  LEV  ANA.  75 

next  each  tree  a  perfectly  different  one  grows.  A  diary 
about  an  ordinary  child  would  be  much  better  than  a  book 
upon  children  by  an  ordinary  writer.  Yes,  every  man's 
opinions  about  education  would  be  valuable  if  he  only 
wrote  what  he  did  not  copy.  The  author,  unlike  a  partner, 
onould  always  only  say  "  I,"  and  no  other  word. 

The  first  part  of  this  work  treats  at  large  of  the  budding, 
the  second  and  third  of  the  blossoming,  season  of 
childhood.  In  the  first,  the  three  early  years,  like  the 
academic  triennium,  after  which  the  gate  of  the  soul, 
language,  is  opened,  are  the  object  of  care  and  observation. 
Here,  educators  are  the  Hours  who  open  or  close  the  gates 
of  heaven.  Here,  true  education,  the  developing ^  is  yet 
possible;  by  whose  means  the  long  second,  the  curative, 
may  be  spared.  For  the  child — yet  in  native  innocence, 
before  his  parents  have  oecome  his  serpents  on  the  tree — 
speechless,  still  unsusceptible  of  verbal  empoisonment — 
led  by  customs,  not  by  words  and  reasons,  therefore  all 
the  more  easily  moved  on  the  narrow  and  small  pinnacle 
of  sensuous  experience ; — for  the  child,  I  say,  on  this 
boundary  line  between  the  monkey  and  the  man,  the  most 
important  era  of  life  is  contained  in  the  years  which 
immediately  follow  his  non-existence,  in  which,  for  the 
first  time,  he  colours  and  moulds  himself  by  companionship 
with  others.  The  parent's  hand  may  cover  and  shelter 
the  germinating  seed,  but  not  the  luxuriant  tree;  con- 
sequently, first  faults  are  the  greatest;  and  mental 
maladies,  unlike  the  small-pox,  are  the  more  dangerous 
the  earlier  they  are  taken.  Every  new  educator  effects 
less  than  his  predecessor ;  until  at  last,  if  we  regard  all 
life  as  an  educational  institution,  a  circumnavigator  of 
the  world  is  less  influenced  by  all  tha  nations  he  has  seen 
than  by  his  nurse. 

At  least  this  book  has  been  composed  with  warmest 
love  for  the  little  beings,  the  delicate  flower-gods  of  a 
soon  fading  Eden.  May  Levana,  the  motherly  goddess 
who  was  formerly  entreated  to  give  a  father's  heart  to 
fathers,  hear  the  prayer  which  the  title  of  this  book 
addresses  to  her,  and,  in  doing  so,  justify  both  it  and  this. 
The  demands  of  the  state  or  of  learning,  unfortunately, 
rob  the  child  of  half  its  father.    The  education  of  mos* 


76  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRIOH   RICHTER.      [PREFACE, 

fathers  is  but  a  system  of  rules  to  keep  the  child  at  a 
respectful  distance  from  them,  and  to  form  him  more 
with  regard  to  their  quiet  than  Ms  powers ;  or  at  most, 
under  a  tornado  of  wrath,  to  impart  as  much  meal  of 
instruction  as  he  can  scatter.  But  I  would  ask  men  of 
business  what  education  of  souls  rewards  more  delight- 
fully and  more  immediately  than  that  of  the  innocent, 
who  resemble  rosewood  which  imparts  its  odour  even 
while  being  carved  and  shaped  ?  Or  what  now  remains 
to  the  decaying  world — among  so  many  ruins  of  what  is 
noblest  and  ancientest — except  children,  the  pure  beings 
yet  unfalsified  by  the  age  and  the  world  ?  Only  they, 
with  a  higher  object  than  that  for  which  they  were 
formerly  used,  can  behold  futurity  and  truth  in  the  magic 
mirror,  and  with  bandaged  eyes  draw  the  precious  lot 
from  the  wheel  of  chance.  The  words  that  the  father 
speaks  to  his  children  in  the  privacy  of  home  are  not 
heard  by  the  world ;  but,  as  in  whispering  galleries,  they 
are  clearly  heard  at  the  end  and  by  posterity. 

It  would  be  my  greatest  reward  if,  at  the  end  of  twenty 
years,  some  reader  as  many  years  old  should  return 
thanks  to  me  that  the  book  which  he  is  then  reading  was 
read  by  his  parents. 

Juan  Paul  Fe.  Eichter. 

Baibeuth,  May  2, 1806. 


SECOND  ED.J  (      77      ) 


AUTHOR'S   PREFACE   TO   SECOND 
EDITION. 


The  second  edition  of  a  work  on  education  is  presented 
with  love  and  respect  to  readers  of  both  sexes :  for  the 
complete  sale  of  the  first  is  regarded  as  a  proof  that  whilst 
the  warlike  Vesuvius  and  Etna  were  playing  fire  and 
thunder  against  each  other,  yet  still  the  German  fatherly 
and  motherly  heart  was  sufficiently  endued  with  peace- 
fulness,  solicitude  and  love  to  attend  to  the  mental  re- 
quirements of  the  child- world,  even  in  like  manner  as  the 
parents  take  these  children  in  their  arms  when  saving 
them  as  best  may  be  from  flames  and  water. 

May  only  Lev  ana  be  right  worthy  of  this  participation 
in  parental  love ! 

This  edition  includes — besides  small  corrections,  and 
besides  the  large  local  interpolations  of  certain  contri- 
butions in  education  scattered  throughout  two  journals, 
and  also  others  not  printed — many  more  exact  conclusions 
to  which  I  found  myself  urged  by  the  opinion  of  one  or 
another  friendly  critic,  more  especially  those  of  Jena 
and  Halle. 

For  perhaps  no  reproof  is  more  to  be  considered 
than  that  of  the  well-disposed  and  like-minded  :  the  ap- 
probation of  enemies  is  nothing  to  it  in  point  of  weight, 
since  it  may  just  as  often  be  a  snare  as  a  safeguard ;  and 
before  a  friendly  critic,  too,  one  wishes  to  defend  neither 
the  yes  nor  no  of  one's  self,  but  only  the  matter  itself. 

To  only  one  critical  reviewer  have  I  nothing  to  say, 
because  he  himself  has  said  nothing :  although  this  ex- 
pression would  do  him  too  much  honour,  had  ho  not 
interspersed  his  criticisms  amongst  tlie  literary  news  of 
Gottingen,  of  which  such  as  is  scholarly  continues  to 
preserve  its  reputation  for  thoroughness,  no  less  than  that 


78  JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDKICH   KICHTEK.      [prEFACE, 

which  is  aesthetic  and  philosophical  has  continued  to 
furnish  the  successive  instalments  of  the  "Nicolai- 
Library "  *  (which  after  long  lullings  has  now  sunk 
into  slumber)  so  artfully  that  a  limited  intellect  may 
already  have  had  enough  of  these  universal  German- 
library  filibusters. 

For  the  rest,  the  author  of  this  gains  in  maturity  less 
through  other  writers  than  through  his  own  children. 
Life  enlivens  life,  and  children  train  us  into  trainers 
better  than  all  trainers.  Long  before  the  first  Levana, 
children  (that  is,  experiences)  were  in  fact  his  teachers, 
and  books  occasionally  his  "  reminders."  Yet  experiences, 
since  they  can  never  be  gained  in  sufficient  number  to 
amount  to  the  strength  of  universal  demonstration,  can 
express  anything  only  through  a  disposition  of  mind  which 
imputes  to  them,  from  out  of  itself,  and  learns  from  them 
what  is  spiritual  and  universal.  Hence  educational 
writings,  on  account  of  the  inexhaustible  number  of 
rules  and  the  difficulty  of  choosing  between  them  in 
each  case,  can  only  successfully  and  practically  help  by 
means  of  the  stimulus  and  fostering  of  parental  love  and 
by  a  peculiar  strength  :  all  real  strength,  be  it  of  the  heart 
or  head,  can,  if  accompanied  with  love  for  children,  educate 
with  success  even  at  the  distance  of  ordinary  methods. 

The  large  number  and  sale  of  writings  on  education  is 
explained  from  the  circumstance  that  of  all  vocations  that 
of  education  is  most  thickly  beset  with  fcilowers :  amongst 
them  all  are  both  sexes  at  once,  parents,  yes,  even  those 
who  have  never  been  parents ;  so  that  consequently  the 
instructor  writes,  not  for  one  case,  like  one  learned  in 
theology,  law  or  such- like,  but  for  all  cases  of  all  people. 
But  we  Germans  especially,  partly  from  abundance  of 
philanthrop}^  partly  from  want  of  money,  partly  from 
want  of  members  mutually  assisting,  do  spiritually  tor 
children  by  writing  on  paper  that  which  the  hospital  lor 
children  in  Paris,  les  enfants  malades,  and  the  "  Club-of- 
Help  "  in  Madrid  try  to  do  physically  for  the  vagabond 

*  Nicolai  was  a  publisher  and  second-rate  writer  of  Berlin.  The 
"  Library  "  was  a  periodical  which  continued  to  appear  during  a  space 
of  twenty-seven  years. — Tb. 


SECOND   ED.]  LEV  ANA.  71) 

cliildren  of  the  streets — we  wish  to  cure  and  teach  their 
souls. 

The  author  allows  himself  only  to  mention  four  im- 
portant works  on  education  which  he  has  read  since  the 
publication  of  his  own.  The  teaching  of  the  general 
apart  from  the  particular  is,  just  as  much  as  the  teaching 
of  the  particular  apart  from  the  general,  a  departure  irom 
the  correct  instruction  which  comprises  both :  but  this 
fruitful  combination  is  found  in  Schwarz's  "  Erziehungs- 
lehre"  (lessons  in  education)  especially  in  the  copious 
classification  of  the  different  species  of  dispositions  (vol. 
iii.  part  i.).  Of  such  flower-catalogues  of  child-souls  we 
cannot  have  too  many ;  they  are,  as  it  were,  the  little 
Linnaean  labels  on  the  seedlings  of  a  tree  and  flower 
nursery.  All  our  parti tioned-cases  for  the  characters  of 
children  are,  however,  as  comprehensive  and  therefore  as 
little  classifying  as  a  high  book-case  with  only  two  shelves 
in  it  might  be.  The  bud-indications  of  future  genius, 
for  example,  we  have  scarcely  at  all,  except  only  from 
themselves  when  they  have  already  borne  flowers  and 
fruit ;  but  the  early  watching  of  them  by  another  would 
give  a  richer  and  purer  return  than  their  own  after- 
recollection  :  it  is  a  pity  only  that  the  teachers  seldom 
know  beforehand  which  child  will  be  greater  than  them- 
selves. It  is  true  that  through  this  ignorance  on  the  part 
of  the  teachers  the  powers  of  the  spirit  of  not  even  one 
genius  will  run  wild,  grow  deformed,  or  become  weakened 
— for  such  a  one  (for  example  Winckelmann)  breaks  like 
the  moth  from  its  chrysalis  through  the  hard  earth  of  all 
restraints  without  damage  to  the  tender  wings — but  the 
powers  of  the  heart,  which  often  it  little  knows  itself  how 
to  rule,  can  easily  by  unskilful  hands  be  contorted  into 
lasting  errors.  Thus  it  would  be  best  that  a  father  should 
always  look  upon  his  children  as  endowed  with  genius  if 
at  all  possible  (and  this  is  easy,  since  he  desires  it  only 
too  much),  and  therefore  keep,  upon  chance,  a  harvest 
register  of  their  developing  power. 

Whilst  Schwarz  in  his  "Lessons,"  by  a  detailed 
treatment  of  the  subject,  and  by  a  noble  kindliness  of 
disposition  appeals  more  to  the  mothers,  NiETHAMMEP. 
in  the  "  Streite  des  Philanthropismus  und  Humanismus  " 


80       JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDEIOH  EICHTER.   fPEEFACE, 

(Conflict  of  PliilaDthropkm  and  Humanism),  addresses 
himself  more  lo  the  fathers  ;  inasmuch  as  he  recommends 
and  prefers  the  formal  education  by  means  of  languages 
as  being  the  education  of  the  whole  correctly,  rather  than 
the  material  instruction  through  objects,  as  being  piece- 
meal education  ;  and  would  strengthen  and  steel  the  inner 
man  more  by  intellectual  labour  than  by  intellectual  feed- 
ing. With  his  pleasing  enmity  towards  the  i)re.sent  time — 
which  by  natural  histories,  Bertuchian  picture-books,  and 
other  apparatus  for  the  eye,  transforms  school-rooms  into 
alps,  where  the  plant  is  forced  till  it  is  meagre  and  small 
and  its  blossom  over-large  —  I  sympathized  joyfully, 
as  early  as  the  first  and  second  chapters  of  the  seventh 
section,  and  I  do  so  still.  The  educational  powei-  of 
philology  becomes  its  own  proof  by  means  of  his  masterly 
logical  demonstration.  He  is  only  wrong,  as  it  seems,  in 
excluding  from  the  fellow-workers  in  the  vineyard  of 
formal  education  the  deep-planting  Pestalozzi,  who,  it 
maj^  be,  belongs  even  to  its  pioneers.  As  Pestalozzi's 
earliest  harvests  are  invisible,  that  is  to  say,  are  only  roots 
which  cannot  be  disclosed  to  view,  so  his  formal  plan 
of  education  by  means  of  mathematics  differs  from  that 
of  "  Humanism  "  through  philology  only  in  respect  to 
the  tool  employed.  Both  teachers  are  driven  in  their 
harvest-wagon  towards  the  saiue  point,  but  as  they  sit 
opposite  to  each  other  they  look  only  at  each  other  and 
at  contrary  roads. 

G  RASER  in  his  work  "  Divinitat  der  Menschenbildung  '* 
(Divineness  of  Human  Education),  sets  out  the  four  gre^t 
means  of  advance  towards  Divinity  (like  the  four  gospels). 
Justice,  Love,  Truth,  and  Art  or  Beauty,  as  the  four  edu- 
cational elements.  Certainly,  instead  of  the  word  "  Di- 
vinitat "  (divineness),  as  unusual  as  it  is  supermundane, 
he  might  with  more  conformity  to  language  and  life  have 
said  "  Gottahnlichkeit "  (likeness  to  God),  seeing  that  the 
best  education,  as  a  second  after-creation  of  the  God-like 
image  in  man,  can  only  leave  us  all  as  vapoury  cold  mock- 
suns  to  the  primeval  Sun  of  the  world,  standing  no  higher 
than  tiae  clouds  of  earth.  In  truth,  the  educational 
principle  of  Divineness  existed  already  in  the  earlier  one 
of  Humanit}^  since  only  as  God-Man  do  we  find  and  know 


8EC0ND  ED.J  LEVANA.  81 

diviDity  in  mankind ;  but  the  radiance  of  the  Ideal  dwell- 
ing in  pure  eternity  throws  ns  the  light  upon  our  path 
more  clearly  than  the  human-reality  dimmed  by  time 
For  the  rest,  the  author,  who  has  not  so  much  woven-in  as 
woven-on  the  definite  to  the  most  general,  surprises  us 
pleasantly  at  the  conclusion  with  definite  embodyings, 
in  fact,  with  hints  so  practical  that  one  would  willingly 
have  given  them  a  good  deal  more  space  and  room  for 
play,  by  clearing  away  earlier  sheets  of  transcendentalism. 
But  can  he  not  take  some  ordinary  white  sheets,  and  give 
us  upon  them  as  long  a  continuation  of  his  Education- 
praxis  as  we  have  already  desired  to  have  in  our  hands? 

In  the  "  Allgemeine  Padagogik  "  (Universal-Pedagogic) 
of  Herbart  the  beautiful  language  beguiling  with  bril- 
liancy and  charms  cannot,  however,  divert  the  wish  that 
he  had  not  used  the  title-privilege  "  universal  "  so  univer- 
sally, and  carried  it  throughout,  so  that  the  reader  is 
obliged  to  fill  in  the  too  spacious  forms  with  supplementary 
contents.  In  a  philosopher,  if  he  be  a  teacher,  one  finds 
often  enough,  to  be  sure,  only  the  polar  star  which,  it  is 
true, (serves  well  for  a  long  voyage  round  the  world,  but 
not  for  a  short  one  in  the  world  :  even  as  philosophers  in 
general  resemble  the  Jewish  prophets  (or  even  weather- 
prophets),  who  predict  more  easily  of  a  century  than  their 
own  approaching  death-day,  just  as  in  history  (if  I  may 
allow  myself  a  too  ponderous  comparison)  even  Providence 
unveils  itself  not  in  years,  but  in  centuries— and  scarcely 
in  them,  since  the  revealing  century  becomes  again  the  veil 
of  the  next.  But  when  Herbart  wishes  to  strengthen 
and  to  stretch  the  muscle-strings  and  bowstrings  of  the 
character,  then  he  enters  powerfully  into  the  special  and 
definite,  and  with  good  reason,  since  the  drift  of  his  words 
and  thoughts  bear  witness  that  he  possesses  one  himself. 
Certainly  for  education,  the  character  is  the  true  elemental- 
fire  :  if  only  the  instructor  has  it,  it  will,  if  not  enkindle 
at  any  rate  give  warmth  and  bring  out  abilities.  The 
present  centurj'  —  a  volcanic  isle  that  glows,  works, 
trembles,  and  heaves— should  at  length  have  learnt  and 
discovered  from  the  political  colossus  who  is  now  stand- 
ing on  the  borders  of  two  centuries,  through  the  victoriob 
v^ver  his  sea-fishers  toiling  hither  and  thither,  the  con 

o 


82  JEAN   PAUL   rKIEDMCH   RICHTER.      (PREFACE. 

tents  and  worth  of  a  character  :  for  a  character  is  a  rock 
on  which  stranded  sailors  land,  and  the  headstrong  are 
wrecked,  Ko  happy  future  for  a  nation  was  ever  yet  to 
be  built  up  but  by  hands  of  which  the  first  and  second 
fingers  could,  intellectually,  clench  themselves  into  fists. 
So  says  hoary  History  to  this  very  day,  but  she  speaks 
as  a  chattering  woman  and  sibyl  more  and  more  year  by 
year,  and  knows  not  how  to  stop. 

This  most  recent,  computed  wealth  of  educational  works, 
even  with  the  omission  of  many  other  sources  of  profit, 
elevates  the  German,  amongst  European  nations,  to  the 
position  of  the  teaching  one ;  and  German  schools,  like 
several  towns  in  France,  ought  to  bear  the  honourable 
title  of  "  the  good."  Even  as  Lessing  called  the  insignifi- 
cant-seeming Jews  the  educators  of  the  human  race,  so  in 
the  Germans  perhaps  we  may  be  promised  the  educators 
of  the  future.<^Love  and  strength,  or  inner  harmony  and 
courage,  are  the  poles  of  education  :  so  Achilles  learnt 
rom  the  centaur  to  play  the  lyre  and  at  the  same  time 
to  draw  the  bow. 

Yet  let  us  above  all  consider,  before  we  invert  the  delu- 
sion of  sailors — who  often  take  ice-fields  for  land— and 
take  the  land  of  the  future  for  an  ice-field,  that  to  all 
nations  of  the  earth,  even  the  more  servile  (to  say  nothing 
of  those  more  free),  the  nursery  of  education  has  remained 
as  a  sunny  spot  and  a  refuge  for  freedom  undestroyed  by 
time  and  circumstance. 

Amongst  all  secret  societies  and  clubs  which  the  State 
in  critical  times  often  prohibits,  the  family-clubs  of  as 
many  children  as  one  has  had  baptized  are  yet  endured 
without  hesitation.  Let  us  then,  with  the  short  child- 
arm — that  is  to  say  with  the  long  arm  of  the  lever — build 
and  move  the  future,  and  unweariedly  and  bravely  help 
to  work  out  the  good  of  the  present,  and  to  bury-in  the 
bad.  Yes,  even  he,  whose  children's  fruit-harvest  may 
tarry  too  long,  let  him  say  to  himself,  "  my  grandchildren 
too  are  human  beings,"  and  let  him  continue  to  sow. 

Jean  Paul  Ft  Kichter. 
Baireuth,  21  «f  November ,  1811. 


(    83    ) 


LEVANA; 

OK, 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  EDUCATION. 


FIEST  FRAGMENT. 


Chap.  I.  Importance  of  Education,  §  1—3.  Chap.  IT.  Discourse 
against  its  Influence,  §  4 — 15.  Chap.  III.  Discourse  for  the  same, 
§  16-20. 


CHAPTER  I 

IMPORTANCE  OF   EDUCATION. 
§1. 

When  Antipater  demanded  fifty  children  as  hostages  from 
the  Spartans,  they  offered  him,  in  their  stead,  a  hundred 
men  of  distinction ;  unlike  ordinary  educators,  who  pre- 
cisely reverse  the  offering.  The  Spartans  thought  rightly 
and  nobly.  In  the  world  of  childhood  all  posterity  stands 
liefore  us,  upon  which  we,  like  Moses  upon  the  promised 
1  and,  may  only  gaze,  but  not  enter ;  and  at  the  same  time 
it  renews  for  us  the  ages  of  the  young  world  behind 
which  we  must  appear  ;  for  the  child  of  the  most  civilised 
ctipital  is  a  bom  Otaheitan,  and  the  one-year-old  Sans- 
culotte a  first  Christian,  and  the  last  children  of  the 
fiarth  came  upon  the  world  with  the  paradise  of  our  first 
parents.  So,  according  to  Bruyn,  the  children  of  the 
Samojeds  are  beautiful  and  only  the  parents  ugly.  If 
there  were  a  perfect  and  all-powerful  system  of  educatioTi, 
and  a  unity  of  educators  with  themselves  and  with  one 

o  2 


84  JEAN   PAUL    FEIEDEICH   KICHTER.        [fRAG.  I. 

another ;  then^ince  each  generation  of  children  begins 
/  the  history  of  me  world  anew,  the  immediate,  and  througli 
^^  it  the  distant  future,  in  which  we  cac  now  gaze  and  grasp 
so  little,  would  stand  much  more  fairly  in  our  power. 
For  deeds  and  books — the  means  by  which  we  have 
hitherto  been  able  to  work  upon  the  world — always  find 
it  already  defined  and  hardened  and  full  of  people  like 
ourselves  ;  only  by  education  can  we  sow  upon  a  pure, 
soft  soil  the  seeds  of  poison  or  of  honey-bearing  flowers ; 
and  as  the  gods  to  the  first  men,  so  do  we,  physical  and 
spiritual  giants  to  children,  descend  to  these  little  ones, 
and  form  them  to  be  great  or  small.  It  is  a  touching  and 
a  mighty  thought  that  now  before  their  educator,  the 
great  spirits  and  teachers  of  our  immediate  posterity 
creep,  as  the  sucklings  of  his  milk-store — that  he  guides 
future  suns,  like  little  wandering  stars,  in  his  leadiug- 
strings.  And  it  is  all  the  more  important  because  he  can 
neither  know  whether  he  has  before  him,  to  unfold  to  good 
or  evil,  a  hell-god  for  humanity,  or  a  protecting  and  light- 
giving  angel ;  nor  can  foresee  at  what  dangerous  moment 
of  futurity  the  magician,  who,  transformed  into  a  little 
child,  now  plays  before  him,  will  rise  up  a  giant. 

§  2. 

Our  immediate  future  demands  thought :  our  earth  is 
filled  with  gunpowder — like  the  age  of  the  migration  of 
nations,  ours  prepares  itself  for  spiritual  and  political 
wanderings,  and  under  all  state  buildings,  professorial 
chairs  and  temples  the  earth  quakes.  Do  you  know 
whether  the  little  boy  who  plucks  flowers  at  your  side 
may  not  one  day,  from  his  island  Corsica,  descend  as  a 
war-god  into  a  stormy  universe,  to  play  witl  storms  and 
to  destroy,  or  to  purify  and  to  sow  ?  Would  it  then  be 
indiflerent  \\hether,  in  educating  him,  you  had  been  his 
Fenelon,  his  Cornelia,  or  his  Dubois  ?  For  although  you 
might  not  be  able  to  break  or  bend  the  power  of  genius — 
the  deeper  the  sea,  the  more  precipitous  the  coast ; — yet 
in  the  most  important  initiatory  decade  of  life,  in  the 
first,  at  the  opening  dawn  of  all  feelings,  you  might 
surround  and  overlay  the  slumbering  lion  energies  with 


CHAP.  I.]  LEV  ANA.  85 

all  the  tender  habits  of  a  gentle  heart  and  all  the  bands 
of  love.  Whether  an  angel  or  a  devil  educate  that  great 
genius  is  of  far  more  importance  than  whether  a  learned 
doctor  or  a  Charles  the  Simple  teach  him. 

Although  a  system  of  education  must,  in  the  first 
instance,  provide  for  the  beings  endowed  with  genius — 
since  these,  though  they  seldom  arise,  yet  alone  rule  the 
world's  history,  eithei-  as  leaders  of  souls,  or  of  bodies,  or 
of  both — yet  would  such  a  system  too  much  resemble  a 
practical  exposition  of  how  to  conduct  one's  self  in  case  of 
winning  the  great  prize,  if  it  did  not  observe  that  the 
multitude  of  mediocre  talents  on  which  a  great  one  can 
act  are  quite  as  important  in  the  mass  as  the  man  of 
genius  is  in  the  individual.  And  therefore,  since,  on  the 
one  hand,  you  give  to  posterity,  as  alms  to  a  beggar, 
through  children ;  and,  on  the  other,  must  send  these  last, 
like  unarmed  men,  into  a  hidden  period  whose  poisonous 
gales  you  know  not :  so  there  is  nothing  more  important 
to  posterity  than  whether  you  send  forth  your  pupil  as 
the  seed-corn  of  a  harvest,  or  the  powder- train  of  a  mine 
which  destroys  itself  and  everything  with  it :  and  nothing 
is  more  important  to  the  child  than  whether  you  have  or 
have  not  given  him  a  magic  jewel  which  may  preserve 
and  conduct  him  uninjured. 

Let  a  child  be  more  holy  to  you  than  the  present  which 
consists  of  things  and  matured  men.  By  means  of  the 
child — although  with  difficulty — by  means  of  the  short 
lever  arm  of  humanity,  you  ^et  in  motion  the  long  one, 
whose  mighty  arc  you  can  scarcely  define  in  the  height 
and  depth  of  time.  But  there  is  something  else  you 
certainly  know  ;  namely,  that  the  moral  development — 
which  i£  education,  as  the  intellectual  is  instruction — 
knows  and  fears  no  time  nor  futurity.  In  this  you  give 
to  the  child  a  heaven  with  a  pole-star,  which  may  ever 
guide  him  in  whatever  new  countries  he  may  afterwards 
reach. 

§  3. 

A  perfect  child  would  be  a  heavenly  Aurora  of  the 
soul ;  at  least  ita  appearance  would  not  be  so  variously 
restrained    and    so  difficult  as  that  of  a   perfect   man, 


86  JEA       PAUL   FRIEDEICH   RICHTER.        [fRAG.  1. 

On  him  everything,  from  the  state  down  to  himself, 
exercises  a  forming  influence ;  but  on  the  fresh  child, 
parents  repeat  with  full  power  the  lawgiving,  moulding 
character  of  Lycurgus  and  of  Moses;  they  can  separate 
their  pupil  from  others,  and  form  him  without  interference, 
better  than  a  Spartan  or  Jewish  state  could  d<».  Con- 
sequently one  ought  to  expect  more  from  the  unlimited 
monarchy  of  parents.  Children  living  in  this  kingdom, 
without  Salic  law,  and  in  such  an  overflow  of  laws  and 
lawgivers  that  the  rulers  are  often  more  numerous  than 
the  ruled,  and  the  governing  house  larger  than  the 
governed — having  everywhere  before  them  cabinet  orders, 
and  offended  majesties,  and  most  rapid  mandata  sine  clau- 
sula, and  behind  the  glass  the  exalted  sceptre  of  the  rod 
— possessing  in  their  sovereign  their  bread-master,  as  well 
as  their  pain  and  pleasure  master — and  protected  against 
him  by  no  foreign  power ;  for  mal-treatment  of  slaves  is 
punished  in  many  countries,  even  of  cattle  in  England, 
but  nowhere  of  children, — children,  then,  thus  absolutely 
governed  without  opposition  party,  or  anti-ministerial 
gazette,  and  without  representatives,  should  issue,  one 
would  think,  out  of  this  smallest  state  within  the  state, 
far  better  educated  than  grown-up  persons  educated  in  the 
greatest  of  all  educational  establishments,  the  state  itself. 
Nevertheless,  both  educational  establishments  and  states 
seem  to  work  so  uniform^,  that  it  is  worth  while,  next 
to  the  necessity  of  education,  to  consider,  in  the  two 
following  discourses,  its  jpossihility. 


CHAPTER   11. 


INAUGURAL   DISCOURSE   AT    THE   JOHANNEUM-PAULLINUM  ;   OK, 
PROOF   THAT    EDUCATION    EFFECTS    LITTLE. 

§  4. 

Most  honoured  Inspector  of  schools,  Rector,  Con-  and  Sub- 
rector,  master  of  the  third  class  !  most  wortliy  teacher  of 
the  lower   classes   and  fellow-labourers!  I  hope   I  shall, 


CHAR  II.J  LEVANT.  87 

to  the  best  of  my  abilities,  express  my  pleasure  at  being 
inducted  as  lowest  teacher  into  your  educational  estab- 
lishment by  entering  on  my  post  of  honour  with  the  proof 
that  school  education,  as  well  as  home  education,  has 
neither  evil  consequences,  nor  any  other.  If  I  am  so 
fortunate  as  to  lead  us  all  to  a  quiet  conviction  of  this 
absence  of  consequences,  I  may  also  possibly  obtain  that 
we  shall  all  fill  our  laborious  offices  easily  and  cheerfully, 
without  boasting,  and  with  a  certain  confidence  that 
needs  fear  nothing ;  every  day  we  shall  walk  in  and  out 
among  the  pupils,  sit  on  our  teaching- chair  as  on  an  easy 
chair,  and  let  ever)-  thing  take  its  own  course. 

First,  I  believe,  I  must  set  forth  who  are  the  educators 
and  complete  fashioners  of  children, — for  fashioned,  in  one 
way  or  another,  they  are ;  and  in  which  way  rests  with 
and  in  us ; — and  afterwards  I  will  naturally  touch  upon 
ourselves,  and  point  out  the  easy  change  -which  may  be 
eflfected. 


Whence  comes  it  that  hitherto  no  age  has  spoken,  coun- 
selled and  done  so  much  about  education  as  our  own ;  and 
again,  among  nations,  none  so  much  as  Germany,  into 
which  Rousseau's  winged  seeds  have  been  blown  out  of 
France  and  ploughed  in?  The  ancients  wrote  and  did 
little  for  it ;  their  schools  were  rather  for  young  men  than 
children,  and  in  the  philosophical  schools  of  Athens  the 
learner  frequently  was,  or  might  be,  older  than  the  teacher. 
Sparta  was  a  Stoa,  or  garrison-school,  at  once  for  parents 
and  children.  The  Romans  had  Grecian  slaves  for  their 
schoolmasters,  and  yet  their  children  became  neither 
Greeks  nor  slaves.  In  the  ages  when  the  great  and 
glorious  deeds  of  Christendom  and  knighthood  and  free- 
dom rose  like  stars  on  the  dark  horizon  of  Europe,  school 
buildings  lay  scattered  around  as  mere  dull,  little,  dark, 
savage  hut«,  or  monks'  cells.  And  what  have  the  political 
vowels  of  Europe — the  English — whose  island  is  a  school 
of  citizens,  and  whose  election  every  seven  years  is  a 
wandering  seven-day  Sunday  school?  what  have  thej' 
hitherto  better  than  mere  establishments  for  mal-education? 
Where  do  the  children  more  resemble  the  parents — and  to 


88  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   RICHTER.        [fRAG.  I. 

any  thing  else  than  a  mirror  of  himself,  be  it  a  flat,  a 
concave,  or  a  convex  one,  the  teacher  cannot  wish  to 
mould  and  polish  -his  pupil — than  even  in  those  places 
where  the  educators  are  silent,  among  savages,  Green- 
landers  and  Quakers  ? 

And  the  further  one  looks  back  through  past  ages  to  the 
hoary  nations  of  antiquity,  the  fewer  school  books  and 
Cyropedias — in  fact,  from  want  of  all  books — were  there : 
all  the  more  was  the  man  lost  in  the  state;  all  the  less 
was  the  woman,  who  might  have  educated,  formed  for  it : 
nevertheless,  every  child  was  the  image  of  its  parents, 
which  is  more  than  the  best  ought  to  desire,  since  God  can 
only  behold  his  own  image  in  men  as  a  caricature.  And 
are  not  our  present  improved  educational  institutions  a 
proof  that  men  can  raise  themselves  freely  and  without 
aid  from  bad  to  better,  and,  consequently,  to  all  other 
establishments  of  a  similar  kind  ? 


§6. 

But  who  then  educates  in  nations  and  ages  ? — Both ! — 
The  living  time,  which  for  twenty  or  thirty  years  struggles 
unceasingly  with  men  through  actions  and  opinions, 
tossing  them  to  and  fro  as  with  a  sea  of  waves,  must  soon 
wash  away  or  cover  the  precipitate  of  the  short  school 
years,  in  which  only  one  man,  and  only  words  taught. 
The  century  is  the  spiritual  climate  of  man,  mere  education 
the  hothouse  and  forcing  pit,  out  of  which  he  is  taken  and 
planted  for  ever  in  the  other.  By  century  is  here  meant 
the  real  century,  which  may  as  often  truly  consist  of  ten 
years  as  of  ten  thousand,  and  which  is  dated,  like  religious 
eras,  only  from  great  men. 

What  can  insulated  words  do  against  living  present 
action  ?  The  present  has  for  new  deeds  also  new  words ; 
the  teacher  has  only  dead  languages  for  the,  to  all  appear- 
ance, dead  bodies  of  his  examples. 

'1  he  educator  has  himself  been  educated  and  is  already 
possessed,  even  without  his  knowledge,  by  thespirit  of 
.the  age,  which  he  asiduously  labours  to  banish  out  of  the 
youth  (as  a  whole  city  criticises  the  spirit  of  the  whole 
city).     Only,  alas !  every  one  believes  himself  to  stand  so 


CHAP.  II.]  LEVANA.  89 

precisely  and  accurately  in  the  zenith  of  the  universe,  that, 
according  to  his  calculation,  all  suns  and  nations  must 
culminate  over  his  head ;  and  he  himself,  like  the  countries 
at  the  equator,  cast  no  shadow  save  into  himself  alone. 
For  were  this  not  so,  how  could  so  many — as  I  also  here- 
after propose  to  do — speak  of  the  spirit  of  the  age,  when 
every  word  implies  a  rescue  from,  and  elevation  above  it ; 
just  as  we  cannot  perceive  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  tide  in 
the  ocean,  but  only  at  its  boundaries,  the  coasts.  In  like 
manner  a  savage  cannot  depict  a  savage  so  clearly  as  a 
civilized  man  can  do.  But  in  truth,  the  painters  of  the 
spirit  of  the  age  have  for  the  most  part  represented  the 
last  one,  nothing  more.  The  great  man,  the  poet  and 
thinker,  has  never  been  so  clearly  known  to  himself  that 
the  crystal  light -holder  and  the  light  have  become  one ; 
much  less  then  have  other  men.  However  easily 
blooming  every  man  may  open  towards  the  sky,  he  is  yet 
drawn  down  by  a  root  into  the  dark,  firm  earth. 

§7. 

The  spirit^ofthejiation  and  of  the  age  decides  and  is  at 
once  theschoolmaster  and  the  school j  for  it  seizes  on  the 
pupil  tcibmr^m  with"  fwo  vigorous  hands  and  powers  ; 
with  the  living  lesson  of  action,  and  with  its  unalterable 
unity.  If — to  begin  with  unity — education  must  be,  like 
the  Testament,  a  continuous  endeavour  to  withdraw  the 
force  of  interrupting  mixtures,  then  nothing  builds  up  so 
strong  as  the  present,  which  ceases  not  for  a  moment  and 
eternally  repeats  itself;  and  which,  with  joy  and  sorrow, 
with  towns  and  books,  with  friends  and  enemies — in  short, 
with  thousand-handed  life,  presses  and  seizes  on  us.  No 
teacher  of  the  people  continues  so  uniformly  one  with  him- 
self as  the  teaching  people.  Minds,  molten  into  masses, 
lose  something  of  free  movement,  which  bodies,  for  in- 
stance that  of  the  world,  perhaps  that  of  the  universe, 
seem  to  gain  by  their  very  massiveness,  and  as  heavy 
colossi  move  only  the  more  easily  along  the  old,  iron- 
covered  track.  For  however  much  marriages,  old  age, 
deaths  and  enmities,  are  in  the  individual  case  subject  to 
the  law  of  freedom ;   yet  lists  of  births  and  deaths  can 


90  JEAN   PAUL   FKIEDKICH    RICIITi^B.         [fEAG.  I. 

be  made  for  a  whole  nation,  arid  it  may  be  shown  that 
in  the  Canton  of  Berne  (according  to  Mad.  de  Stael)  the 
number  of  divorces,  as  in  Italy  that  of  murders,  is  the 
same  from  year  to  year.  Must  not,  now,  the  littie  human 
being  placed  on  such  an  eternally  and  ever  similarly  acting 
world  be  borne  as  uj)on  a  flying  earth,  where  the  only 
directions  that  a  teacher  can  give  avail  nothing,  because 
he  has  first  unconsciously  received  his  line  of  movement 
upon  it  ?  Thence,  in  spite  of  all  reformers  and  informers, 
nations,  like  meadows,  reach  ever  a  similar  verdure ; 
thence,  even  in  capital  cities,  where  all  schoolbooks  and 
schoolmasters,  and  even  parents  of  every  kind  educate,  the 
spirit  maintains  itself  unalterably  the  same. 

Eepetition  is  the  motl;er  not  only  of  study  but  also  of 
education.  Like  the  fresco  painter,  the  teacher  lays  colours 
on  the  wet  plaster  which  ever  fade  away,  and  which  he 
must  ever  renew  until  they  remain  and  brightly  shine. 
\vho  then,  at  Naples  for  instance,  lays  the  colours  most 
frequently  on  the  spiritual  tablet  of  one  individual,  the  one 
tutor, or  the  multitude  of  30,000  advocates,  30,000 lazzaroni, 
and  30,000  monks ;  a  threefold  company  of  fates,  or  nine- 
fold one  of  nine  murderers,  compared  with  which  Vesuvius 
is  a  quiet  man  who  suffers  himself  to  be  entreated  by 
Saint  Januarius  *  (although  not  in  January)  ? 

Certainly  one  might  say  that  also  in  families  there 
educates,  besides  the  popular  masses,  a  pedagogic  crowd  of 
people ;  at  least,  for  instance,  aunts,  grandfathers,  grand- 
mothers, father,  mother,  godparents,  friends  of  the  family, 
the  yearly  domestics,  and  at  the  end  of  all,  the  instructor 
beckons  with  his  fore-finger,  so  that — could  this  force 
continue  as  long  as  it  would  gladly  be  maintained — a 
child,  under  these  many  masters,  would  resemble,  much 
more  than  one  thinks,  an  Indian  slave  who  wanders  about 
with  the  inburnt  stamps  of  his  various  masters.  But  how 
does  the  multitude  disappear  compared  with  the  highei 
one  by  which  it  was  coloured  ;  just  as  all  the  burnt  marks 
of  the  slave  yet  cannot  overcome  the  hot  black  colouring 
of  the  sun,  but  receive  it  as  a  coat  of  arms  ii  a  sable 
field! 

*  The  protecting  saint  of  the  NeaDolitans  against  Ves  vius. 


CHAP.  IT.]  LEVANA.  91 


The  second  mighty  power  by  which  the  spirit  { f  thf 
age  and  people  teaches  and  conquers  is  the  living  actior . 
Not  the  cry,  says  a  Chinese  author,  but  the  rising  of 
a  wild  duck  impels  the  flock  to  follow  him  in  upward 
flight.  One  war  fought  against  a  Xerxes  inflames  the 
heart  quite  differently,  more  purely  and  more  strongly 
than  the  perusal  of  it  three  times  in  Cornelius,  Plutarch, 
and  Herodotus:  for  this  last,  along  with  the  whole 
teaching  of  school  phrases,  is  merely  an  intellectual  imi- 
tation in  cork  (a  phelloplastic,  according  to  Bcittiger's 
retranslation  into  the  Greek)  in  order  easily  to  represent 
ancient  temples  and  magnificent  buildings  in  light  cork 
forms.  Yea,  the  mere  ancestral  images  of  deeds  in 
Plutarch's  Westminster  Abbey  cast  the  seeds  of  the  cUvine 
word  more  deeply  into  the  heart  than  one  or  a  few  thou- 
sand volumes  of  sermons  full  of  true  pulpit  eloquence. 
Heaven !  if  words  could  be  compressed  to  deeds,  only  a 
thousand  to  one,  could  they  yet  arouse  upon  an  earth  in 
which  pulpits,  professors'  chairs  and  libraries  of  all  ages 
snow  down  unceasingly  their  most  pure  cold  exhortations, 
one  single  passion  to  hurl  forth  volcanic  fiie?  Would  not 
history  then  be  surrounded  with  mere  snow  craters  and 
icebergs  ?  Ah  !  most  respected  teachers,  if  even  we,  with 
our  great  college  libraries  that  preach  to  us  for  tens  of 
years,  have  never  once  been  brought  so  far  as  to  become 
holy  men  for  a  month,  nay  for  a  week,  what  dnre  we 
expect  from  the  few  volumes  of  words  which  we  let  fall  in 
school  hours  ?  Or  what  more  should  the  parents  at  honje 
expect  ? 

The  pedagogic  powerlessness  of  woid^uis  unfortunately 
confessed  in  a  peculiar  manner,  whiclTis  daily  renewed  in 
each  of  us.  Namely,  every  individual  being  is  divided 
into  a  teacher  and  his  scholars ;  or  is  split  up  into  the 
teacher's  chair  and  the  scholars'  bench.  Should  you  now 
believe  that  this  perpetual  house-tutor  in  the  four  chambers 
of  the  brain — who  daily  gives  private  lessons  to  the  shurcr 
of  his  apartment,  philanthropist  and  boarder— who  is  a 
morning,  evening  and  night  preacher— who  never  ceases 


92  JEAN   PAUL   FKIEDKICH   RICHTEK.        [fRAG.  I. 

with  his  conversatorium  and  repetitorium — who  accom- 
panies the  pupil,  whom  he  loves  as  himself  and  conversely, 
everywhere  with  notes  of  instruction  as  tutor  on  hit> 
travels,  in  idle  hours  and  wine-drinkings,  by  seats  on  the 
throne,  by  the  chair  of  instruction  and  elsewliere — who, 
as  the  most  unlimited  head-master  to  be  found  under  the 
skull,  ever  sleeps  with  his  scholar,  as  a  Serjeant  with  a 
recruit,  in  the  same  bed,  and  from  time  to  time  reminds 
him  of  much  when  a  man  has  forgotten  himself, — in  short, 
could  you  believe  that  this  so  extremely  rare  Mentor,  who 
from  the  pineal  gland,  as  the  lodging  place  of  the  high 
light,  eternally  teaches  downward,  nevertheless  after  fifty 
and  more  judgments  and  years,  has  experienced  nothing 
better  in  his  Telemachus,  than  what  the  pure  Minerva 
(the  well-known  and  anonymous  Mentor  in  the  Telemachus) 
with  all  her  modesty,  in  the  greatest  head  of  the  world,  in 
that  of  Jupiter,  also  had  to  experience,  namely,  that  she 
could  not  spare  her  pupil  a  single  one  of  his  animal 
transformations?  This,  indeed,  were  scarcely  to  be 
believed  if  we  did  not  daily  see  the  most  lamentable 
instances  of  it  in  ourselves.  There  is,  for  example,  in  the 
history  of  the  learned  something  very  usual  and  yotj 
pitiful :  that  excellent  men  have  resolved  for  many  years 
to  rise  earlier  in  a  morning,  without  much  coming  of  it — 
unless  they  may  perhaps  break  through  the  habit  at  the 
last  day. 

§  9. 

Permit  us  to  return :  and  since  we  have  easily  asked 
whether  a  man  may  be  more  effectually  moved  by  a 
thousand  outward  foreign  words  than  by  a  billion  of  his 
own  inward  ones,  let  us  not  be  very  much  astonished  if 
the  stream  of  words  which  is  given  to  the  youth,  in  order 
that  he  may  thereby  guide  and  bear  himself  up  in  the 
ocean,  should  be  dissipated  by  the  winds  and  waves  on 
every  side.  But  give  us  leave  to  remark  that  we  lay 
many  things  to  the  account  of  school-rooms,  that  is,  of 
words,  which  have  in  fact  had  their  sole  origin  on  the 
common  teaching-ground  of  action ;  just  as,  in  former 
times,  general  pestilences  were  ascribed  to  the  poisoning 
of  particular  wells  by  the  Jews.     The  schoolhouse  of  the 


CHAP.  II.]  LEVANA.  93 

young  soul  does  not  merely  consist  of  lecture  and  lesson 
rooms,  but  also  of  the  school  ground,  the  sleeping  room, 
the  eating  room,  the  play-ground,  the  staircase,  and  of 
every  place.  Heaven!  what  intermixture  of  other  in- 
fluences, always  either  to  the  advantage  or  prejudice  of 
education  !  The  physical  growth  of  the  pupil  nourishes 
and  draws  forth  a  mental  one  !  Nevertheless,  this  is 
ascribed  to  the  pedagogic  tan-bed ;  just  as  if  one  must 
not  necessaril}^  grow  cleverer  and  taller  at  the  same  time  ! 
One  might  quite  as  properly  attribute  the  service  of  the 
muscles  to  the  leading-strings.  Parents  very  often  in  their 
o^vn  children  regard  that  as  the  ettect  of  educational  care 
and  attention  which  in  strangers  they  would  merely  con- 
sider the  consequence  of  human  growth.  There  are  so 
many  illusions  !  If  a  great  man  have  gone  through  any 
one  educational  establishment,  he  is  ever  after  explained 
by  that :  either  he  did  not  resemble  it,  and  then  it  is  held 
to  have  been  a  moulding  counter-irritation  ;  or  he  did,  and 
then  it  acted  as  an  incitement  to  life.  In  the  same  way 
one  might  regard  the  blue  library,  whose  binding  taught 
the  librarian  Duval  his  first  lessons  in  arithmetic,  as  an 
arithmetical  book  and  school  for  arithmetic.  If  parents, 
or  men  in  general,  in  all  their  education  seek  nothing  else 
than  to  make  their  physical  image  into  their  more  perfect 
mental  one,  and  consequently  to  varnish  over  this  copy 
with  the  departed  brightness  of  the  original,  then  must 
they  readily  fall  into  the  mistake  of  esteeming  an  inborn 
resemblance  an  acquired  one,  and  physical  fathers  spiritual 
ones,  and  nature  freedom.  But  in  this  and  the  former 
consideration,  that  holds  true  of  children  which  does  of 
nations :  there  were  found  in  the  new  world  ten  customs  of 
the  old — six  Chinese  in  Peru,  four  Hottentotish  in  western 
America*, — without  any  other  nearer  descent  to  account 
for  these  resemblances  than  the  general  one  from  Adam, 
)r  humanity. 

§10. 

We  may,   excellent  fellow-workers,   especially  flatter 
ourselves  with  services  to  humanity  when  the  position  is 
proved  true,  that  we  eflfect  little,  or  nothing,  by  education. 
*  ZiaunerinaDD*d  History  of  Man,  vol.  iiL 


94  JEAN   PAUL   FEIEDRICH   EICHTER.        [fRAG.  I. 

As  ill  the  mecliaiiical  world  every  motion,  if  the  opposition 
of  friction  were  removed,  would  be  unceasingly  continued, 
and  every  change  become  eternal ;  so,  in  the  spiritual 
world,  if  the  pupil  less  bravely  opposed  and  vanquished 
the  teacher,  a  more  beggarly  life  would  be  eternally 
repeated  than  we  can  at  all  picture  to  ourselves.  I  mean 
this  :  if  all  the  ways  and  times  of  this  poor  earth  were  to 
be  filled  with  dull  stiff  images  from  pedagogic  old  prin- 
cipality-liw-codes  and  8wabia-law-codes,  that  is  with 
counterfeits  of  school-men,  so  that  consequently  every  age 
would  be  reprinted  from  the  preceding  one,  manikin  for 
manikin  ;  *  what  else  is  wanted  for  this  tedious  misery  but 
that  education  should  succeed  beyond  our  expectations, 
and  a  tutor  and  schoolmaster  allow  his  head,  like  a  crowned 
one,  to  pass  stamped  in  all  hands  and  corners  ?  And  a 
whole  bench  of  knights  might  become  an  assembly  of 
candidates  fit  for  the  tournament,  because  they  had  been 
previously  clean  and  well  copied  after  the  quiet  burgher's 
pattern  ? 

But  we  will  venture  to  hope  the  opposite ;  the  school- 
master and  tutor  is  ever  afterwards  connected  with  the 
nobleman  as  God  with  nature  ;  concerning  which  Seneca 
justly  writes — semel  jussit^  semper  paret — i.e.,  the  tutor's 
study  is  very  soon  closed,  and  the  ante-chamber  and 
audience-hall  opened. 

In  order  not  to  fall  into  the  error  of  those  who  introduce 
the  bird  Phoenix  and  the  Man  in  the  Moon  un wived,  I  have 
here  in  my  thoughts  girls  also,  on  whom,  as  on  pigeons 
and  canary  birds,  false  colours  are  painted  by  governesses, 
as  well  as  by  tutors,  which  the  first  rain  or  moulting 
removes.  But,  as  has  been  said,  every  woman  becomes  in 
time  something  peculiar ;  a  beautiful  Idioticon  of  her 
many  provinces  of  language. 

§11. 

Through  long  teaching,  to  which  no  advance  of  the 
pupil  is  sufficiently  proportioned,  schoolmasters  of  under- 
standing may  arrive  at  the  question  :  "  How  will  the  poor 

*  An  exp  r<  ssion  used  of  a  s(  cond  edition  when  it  is  a  reprint  of  the 
fijTbt ;  whicli  (a^  this  minor  proposition  demonstrat-.s)  is  not  the  case  here. 


CHAP.  II.]  LEVANA.  95 

scholar  be  able  to  walk  in  the  right  path  without  our 
leadincr-strings,  since  even  with  them  he  runs  into  error  ?" 
— and  also  at  this  wish  :  "  Good  heavens  !  that  we  could 
but  wand  him  up  and  fix  him,  exactly  like  an  astronomical 
hundred-y eared  chronometer,  so  that  he  might  show  the 
hours  and  positions  of  the  planets  and  every  thing  quite 
accurately  long  after  our  death ! " — and  consequently  at 
this  opinion  :  "  That  tliey  were  in  fact  the  soul  of  his  inner 
man,  and  had  to  raise  his  every  limb,  or  were  at  least  his 
supporting  mould,  in  which  he  ought  not  merely  to  carry 
his  broken  arm,  as  in  a  gentle  bandage,  but  also  his 
leg,  liis  head  and  his  entrails,  so  as  to  be  completely 
strengthened."  If  the  tutor  accompany  his  young  master 
to  the  university,  the  one  goes  into  much  good  society 
without  the  other :  and  if  they  both  at  last  set  off  on  their 
travels,  the  young  gentleman  goes  into  much  of  a  suspicious 
nature,  and  the  tutor  ends  his  anxiety ; — which  resembles 
the  anxiety  of  a  mother  as  to  how  the  poor  naked  f(jetus 
can  exist  when  it  comes  into  this  cold  blowing  world  and 
is  no  longer  nourished  by  hei  blood. 

Truly  your  singing  bird  of  a  pupil  will  continue  to 
whistle  for  you  through  the  night ;  because,  by  a  night- 
light,  that  is  by  an  education  out  of  season,  you  delude 
him  into  the  belief  of  an  artificial  day-light ;  but,  when 
he  once  flies  into  the  open  air,  he  "svill  then  only  arrange 
his  notes  and  sound  them  at  the  general  break  of  day. 
If  we  place  ourselves  on  another  eminence  to  con- 
mplate  thence  the  directions,  fears  and  demands  ol 
I.  ackers,  we  almost  feel  tempted  to  drive  them  down  from 
tli«  ii-  lofty  position,  especially  because  they,  the  educators, 
assume  and  presume  so  much  /  for  they  do  not  take  and } 
set  before  them  the  great  World-plan  as  their  school-plan,  1 
nor  the  All-educator  as  an  example  to  the  poor  hedge- 
schoolmaster  man, — but  do  so  anxiously  endeavour,  with 
'leir  narrow  views,  to  assist  the  infinite  Pedagogiarch 
Prince  of  teachers)  who  permits  sun  to  revolve  round 
sun,  and  child  round  father,  and  so  the  child's  and  father  s 
liither  are  alike, — as  if  humanity,  neglected  for  thousands 
of  years,  were  laid  before  them,  like  warm  wax,  on  which 
they  had  to  impress  their  own  individual  induration,  to 
pr  iduce   future  indurations ;  so  that   they   might  as  re- 


96  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   RICHTER.        [fRAG.  1. 

creators  agreeably  surprise  the  Creator  with  a  living  seal 
and  plaster  cabinet  of  their  coats  of  arms  and  heads. 
A  long  period,  and  here  again  a  long  period ! 


§  12. 

None  of  all  my  hearers,  of  whom  I  am  the  nearest,  can 
have  forgotten  that  at  the  commencement  I  asked  why 
so  much  at  present  in  Germany  is  written  about  educa- 
tion and  grounded  upon  it,  as  I  also  myself  intend  to  lay 
some  printed  ideas  on  the  subject  before  the  public.  I 
answer,  for  this  reason ;  because  by  cultivation  all 
humanity  has  become  a  speaking  machine,  and  the  flesh  a 
word.  The  more  education  the  more  notions;  the  less 
action  the  more  speech ;  man  is  becoming  a  man  by 
profession,  as  there  were  formerly  Christians  by  profession; 
and  the  ear  his  sensorium  commune.  The  beggar,  for 
instance,  passes  by  the  great  citizen  unnoticed ;  the  one 
has  fled  from  the  other,  not  merely  in  deed,  but  beyond 
that,  in  word :  just  as  battles,  pestilences  and  such  like, 
pass  over  us  only  as  gentle  sounds.  Therefore  is  poetry 
so  beneficial  as  a  counterbalance  to  civilisation,  because  it 
draws  an  artistic  life  round  the  thin  shadows,  and  erects 
on  the  battle-tield  of  mere  sensuous  views  its  own  glorious 
visions.  But  as  the  German  spends  no  time  so  willingly 
as  a  time  for  consideration — to  the  most  important  step  he 
made,  namely  that  into  life,  he  took  an  eternity  of  con- 
sideration— he  prefers  steady,  slow  writing,  to  quick 
hither  and  thither  roving  speech  ;  unlike  the  Southerns,  he 
is  less  a  speech-loving  than  a  writing-loving  people,  as  his 
registries  and  book-shelves  prove.  "  A  word,  a  man,"  * 
means  now  "  black  on  white,  a  man."  Writing  and  fact, 
or  clothing  and  body,  are  now  as  distinct  from  one  another 
as  shoe  and  foot,  which,  as  a  measure,  mean  with  us  the 
same  thing.  It  all  depends  on  one  little  stroke  whether 
Christ  is  God  or  not;  namely,  on  the  well-known  passage, 
1  Tim.  iii.  16,  in  the  Alexandrine  codex,  where  a  little 
stroke  with  the  back  of  the  pen  changes  OC  [i.e.  Os]  into 

*  A  common  proverbial  expression,  signifying  that  no  written 
contract  is  necespary  when  a  man  has  given  his  word. — Tb. 


CHAP.  II.J  LEVANA.  97 

0C  (0CO5),  aud  apon  an  "  Or  "  in  the  Carolina,*  whether  a 
man  should  be  hanged  or  not. 

But  now  if  the  inner  being  of  the  cultivated  man  is 
merely  composed,  like  some  drawings,  of  letters  and  words, 
then  enough  can  never  be  said  of  and  in  education,  since 
the  consciousness  of  having  separated  the  inner  life  into 
ideas,  consequently  into  words,  secures  the  certainty  of 
being  able  again  to  re-construct  it  by  means  of  the  sepa- 
rated component  parts,  that  is,  by  means  of  words  ;  in 
short,  to  educate  through  the  means  of  speech,  by  the  pen 
and  the  tongue.  "  Draw,"  said  Donatello  to  the  sculptors, 
*'  and  you  will  be  able  to  do  the  rest."  "  Speak,"  say  we 
to  teachers,  "  and  you  will  show  how  to  act." 

As  every  kind  of  existence  only  propagates  itself  by 
itself ;  for  example,  deeds  only  by  deeds,  words  by  words, 
education  by  education  ;  we  will,  excellent  fellow-labourers, 
cheer  and  strengthen  ourselves  in  the  hope  that  our  teach- 
ing may  spiritually  reward  us  by  the  elevation  of  our 
pupils  into  teachers,  who  may  hereafter  speak  more  ex- 
tendedly  with  others ;  and  that  our  Johanneum-Paullinum 
may  serve  as  an  educational  institution  for  many  educa- 
tional institutions,  while  we  send  forth  from  our  school- 
gates  matured  house-tutors,  school-keepers  and  catechizers, 
to  produce  their  equals  in  good  school-houses, — not  Cyruses, 
but  Cyropedias  and  Cyi'opedagogiarchs. 


§  13. 

I  now  turn  to  the  most  worshipful  fathers  of  the  city, 
our  supporters  and  school  archs,  not  only  with  thanks,  but 
i»lso  with  entreaties.  There  remains,  namely,  in  the  most 
unpractical  men  and  speakers  a  somethiug  harsh  and  real 
— it  is  called,  harshly  enough.  Stomach — which,  from 
selfishness,  values  in  the  tongue  only  its  imports,  not  its 
exports.  Enough  ;  every  one  possesses  this  member  ;  and 
it  is  this  especially  that  makes  us  wish  our  school  might 
bo  raised  into  a  finance  or  industrial  school  for  all  those 
who  receive  their  incomes  from  it,  so  that  every  one  whc 
as  scholar  subscribes  to  it  may  gladly  again  enter  it  in 

•  Art.  159. 


98  JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDEICH  RICHTER.        [fRAG.  I. 

order  to  be  paid  as  teacher.  Moreover  our  school  book- 
shop, less  truly  school-library,  and  our  school-purse,  yea 
and  our  school  widow's  fund,  might  be  well  supported; 
and  so  of 'every  thing  else,  for  the  only  school  sickness 
which  teachers  have  is  hunger,  an  evil  for  which  the  state 
should  supply  domestic  means,  or  so  called  housekeeper's 
provision. 

But  since  all  of  us,  especially  as  educators  of  youth,  wish 
to  live  for  something  fairer  and  more  enduring  than  our 
dinner  of  black  soup,  for  which  we  must  first  all  day  long 
distribute  whipping-soup,  I  venture,  unabashed,  to  prefer 
the  proud  request :  That  the  desk  from  which  the  third 
master  and  music  teacher,  as  well  as  myself,  have  to  pro- 
pound the  needful  instruction,  may  be  newly  coloured, 
merely  like  a  book  or  a  Prussian  post  house,  black  and 
white ;  and  that  the  Lyceum  may  receive,  if  not  the  name 
Gymnasium,  yet  the  epithet  Koyal,  and  that  we  may  all, 
as  far  as  possible,  be  addressed  by  the  title  of  Professors. 
Perhaps  the  school  friendship,  which  has  hitherto  con- 
fined itself  to  the  scholars,  might  then  be  extended  to  the 
teachers.     Fiat ! — Dixi  I 


§  14. 

Scarcely  had  the  author  composed  and  delivered  this 
inaugural  discourse,  than  so  much  of  a  resignation  speech 
was  found  in  it,  that  a  fair  opportunity  to  deliver  this 
also,  and  to  explain  himself  more  at  large,  was  afforded  by 
his  removal  which  occurred  a  few  days  afterwards.  There- 
by he  was  placed  in  a  position  to  take  leave  of  his  fellow- 
teachers  as  publicly  as  he  had  received  his  dismissal,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  choose  as  text  for  his  short  farewell 
discourse — The  Educational  Chair  (which  he  mounted  for 
the  second  and  last  time),  and  to  impress  upon  them  its 
importance. 


CHAP.  III.1  LEVANA.  99 

CHAPTER  m. 

IMPORTANCE    OF    EDUCATION. 
§    15. 

Most  honoured  brothers  in  office!  In  laying  down  my 
sbort-held  office  with  a  certain  consoling  consciousness 
that  none  of  those  intrusted  to  my  charge  will  ever  stand 
forth  to  reproach  me  with  an  erroneous  plan  of  teaching, 
or  with  hours  of  instruction  gossiped  away,  I  can  find  no 
theme  for  a  farewell  more  connected  with  the  subject  than 
the  consideration  how  deeply  a  good  education  penetrates 
into  the  heart  of  the  age ;  and  I  choose  this  the  more  readily, 
because  it  will  give  me  an  opportunity  to  place  in  a  new 
light  much  that  the  day  before  yesterday  was  laid  down 
by  my  predecessor  in  this  desk,  the  deliverer  of  the  in- 
augural discourse, — for  here  I  do  not  venture  to  speak  of 
myself  in  any  (jther  way  since  my  dismissal. 

It  shall  only  be  proved  that  he  advanced  mere  sophisms, 
which  originally,  according  to  Leibnitz,  signified  only  exer- 
cises in  wisdom. 

"  For  what  other  reason,"  he  asks,  "  do  men  now  write 
80  much  about  education,  than  because,"  he  answers,  "  our 
whole  existence  has  passed  into  words,  and  words  so  easily, 
by  means  of  tongues  and  ears,  into  the  soul."  But  is  this, 
pray,  anything  different  from  what  1  myself  maintain? 
>Ve  shall  see. 

§16. 

No  former  age  or  people  is  to  be  compared  with  any 
since  the  invention  of  printing  ;  for  since  that  time  there 
have  been  no  more  isolated  states,  and  consequently  no 
isolated  influence  of  the  state  on  its  component  parts. 
Strangers  and  returned  travellers,  whom  Lycurgus  ex- 
cluded from  his  republic,  like  episodes  and  the  intervention 
of  gods  from  the  dramatic  unities,  now  traverse  every 
countiy  in  the  shape  of  cheap  books  and  waste  paper.  No 
one  is  any  longer  alone,  not  even  an  island  in  the  most 
distant  sea ;  thence  oomes  it  that  the  political  balance  of 

u  2 


100  JEAN   PAUL   FEIEDKICH   KICHTER.         [FRAG.  I. 

power  of  many  states  collected  under  one  arm  of  the 
balance  is  now  first  mooted.  Europe  is  an  interlaced, 
mis-grown,  banyan-forest  round  which  the  other  quarters 
of  the  world  creep,  like  parasitic  plants,  and  nourish  them- 
selves on  its  decayed  parts.  /  Books  form  a  universal 
republic,  a  union  of  nations,  or  a  society  of  Jesus,  in  a 
nobler  sense,  or  a  Humane  society,  whereby  a  second  or 
duplicate  Europe  arises ;  which,  like  London,  lies  in 
several  counties  and  districts.  As  now,  on  the  one  side, 
the  book-pollen  flying  everywhere  brings  the  disadvantage 
that  no  people  can  any  longer  produce  a  bed  of  flowers 
true  and  unspotted  with  foreign  colours : — as  now  no  state 
can  be  any  longer  formed  purely,  slowly,  and  by  degrees 
from  itself,  but,  like  an  Indian  idol  composed  of  different 
animals,  must  see  the  various  members  of  the  neighbouring 
states  mingled  with  its  growth ; — so,  on  the  other  side, 
through  the  (Ecumenic  Council  of  the  book- world,  the  spirit 
of  a  provincial  assembly  can  no  longer  slavishly  enchain  its 
people,  and  an  invisible  church  frees  it  from  the  visible 
one. — And  therefore  we  educate  now  with  some  hope  for 
the  age  because  we  know  that  the  spoken  word  of  the 
German  teacher  is  re-echoed  by  the  printed  page ;  and  that 
the  citizen  of  the  world,  under  the  supervision  of  the 
universal  republic,  will  not  sink  into  the  citizen  of  an 
injurious  state,  all  the  more  because,,'  though  books  may  be 
dead  yet  glorified  men.  their  pupils'  will  ever  hold  them- 
selves as  their  living  relatives.  / 

That  the  age  writes  so  much  on  education  shows  at  once 
its  absence  and  the  feeling  of  its  importance.  Only  lost 
things  are  cried  about  the  streets.  The  German  state 
itself  no  longer  educates  sufficiently ;  consequently  the 
teacher  should  do  it  in  the  nursery,  from  the  pulpit,  and 
from  the  desk.  The  forcing-houses  in  Eome  and  Sparta  are 
destroyed, — in  Sinai  and  in  the  Arabian  desert  some  few 
3^et  stand.  The  old  circle,  that  the  state  should  plan 
and  direct  the  education,  and  this  again  act  on  that,  has 
been  very  much  rectified,  or  indeed  squared,  by  the  art 
of  printing;  for  now  men,  elevated  above  all  states, 
educate  states  ;  dead  men,  for  instance,  like  Plato ;  just  as 
in  the  deep  old  morning-world,  according  to  the  Saga, 
angels  with  glories  wandered  about,  guided,  like  children, 


CHAP.  III.]  ,LEVAl!rA.  •     "'  101 

the  Dew  men  who  had  sprung  out  of 'tiLe*rU{nT3,- ^n<?i^V*^i^^g 
ended  their  instruction,  vanished  into  heaven.  The  earth, 
according  to  Zach's  ingenious  idea,  has  been  formed  from 
congregated  moons  ;  one  moon,  striking  on  the  American 
side,  drove  the  deluge  over  the  old  world;  the  sharp- 
pointed,  wildly-up-piled  Switzerland  is  nothing  more  than 
a  visible  moon  that  once  tumbled  from  its  pure  ether  down 
to  the  earth, — and  so  there  is  in  intellectual  Europe,  far 
more  than  in  any  age  or  quarter  of  the  world  not  addicted 
to  printing,  a  congregation  of  soul-worlds,  or  of  world- 
souls,  sent  or  fallen  from  heaven.  The  great  man  has  now 
a  higher  throne,  and  his  crown  shines  over  a  wider  plain ; 
for  he  works  not  only  by  action,  but  also  by  writing, — not 
only  by  his  word,  but  also,  like  thunder,  by  its  echo.  So 
one  mind  influences  its  neighbouring  minds,  and  through 
them  the  masses.  As  many  little  ships  draw  a  large  one 
into  harbour,  so  inferior  minds  bring  the  great  one  to  shore 
that  it  may  be  unladen. 

§17. 

My  predecessor,  however,  might  grant  or  add  much ; 
namely,  that  if  the  great  body  of  authors  have  gradually 
assumed  the  educational  position  once  held  by  quacks  and 
fortunetellers,  the  great  advancing  mass  of  the  people, 
which  so  easily  overpowers  in  its  vast  ocean  the  early 
teaching  of  childhood,  has  itself  changed  and  increased. 
"  Libraries,  and  two  yearly  book-fairs — not  including  tho 
one  of  reprints  at  Frankfort — surpass,  I  should  think,  a 
few  schoolbooks  and  their  expounders,"  the  deliverer  of  the 
add  I  ess  might,  and  probably  does,  say.  But  a  principal 
point  here  must  not  be  overlooked. 

It  is  indubitable  that  everything  impresses  man  either 
formingly  or  improvingly;  so  that,  I  think,  not  merely 
an  assembly  of  people  and  of  books,  and  gieat  electric 
effusions  in  his  heaven's  equator  discompose  him,  but  also 
that  damp  weather  unnerves  him, — hence  it  is  certain  that 
no  man  can  take  a  walk  without  bringing  home  an  in- 
fluence on  his  eternity ;  every  spur,  every  star  of  heaven 
and  of  knighthood,  every  beetle,  every  trip  or  touch  of  the 
hand  as  certainly  engraves  itself  upon  us,  as  the  gentle 
dewdrop  or  the  hanging  of  a  mist  affects   the    granite 


102  JEAN   fAUL'FRiEDEICH  EICHTEE.        [pRAG.  !• 

mountiai?le;  Bdt  JTist'as  beAirily,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
this  assertion  necessary :  "  That  the  strength  of  every 
impression  depends  on  our  condition  yesterday,  to-day,  and 
to-morrow."  For  the  human  being  assimilates  more 
spiritual  food  the  less  he  has  hitherto  received;  as  he 
never  grows  more  rapidly  and  disproportionately  to  the 
given  nourishment  than  as  foetus :  but,  after  he  has  reached 
the  point  of  satiety,  he  rejects  so  much  that  it  is  well 
the  brief  youth  of  the  individual  is  compensated  by  the 
eternal  youth  of  humanity,  whose  point  of  satiety  is 
marked  on  a  scale  which  takes  centuries  and  nations  for  the 
fractions  of  its  lines. 

On  this  account  education  is  always  counselled  to  do  as 
much  as  possible  during  the  first  year  of  life ;  for  it  can 
then  effect  more  with  half  the  power  than  it  can  in  the 
eighth  with  double,  when  the  sense  of  freedom  is  aroused, 
and  all  the  conditions  of  being  indefinitely  multiplied. 
As  farmers  believe  it  most  advantageous  to  sow  in  mist, 
so  the  first  seeds  of  education  should  fall  in  the  first  and 
thickest  mist  of  life. 

-^  In  the  first  place  have  regard  to  morality.  ...The^inner 
jcaan  is,  like  the  negro,  born  white  and  only  coloured  black 
by  life.  If  in  mature  years  great  examples  of  moral^worth 
pass  by  without  influencing  our  course  of  life  more  than  a 
flying  comet  does  that  of  the  earth,  yet  in  the  deep  heart 
of  childhood  the  first  inner  or  outer  object  of  love,  injustice, 
&c.,  throws  a  shadow  or  a  light  immeasurably  far  along  its 
years ;  and  as,  according  to  the  elder  theologians,  we  only 
inherited  Adam's  first  sin,  not  his  other  sins,  since  in  one 
fall  we  copied  every  fall ;  so  the  first  fall  and  the  first_ 
flight  influence  us  our  whole  life  long.  ^  For  in  this  early 
moment  the  Eternal  works  the  second  miracle ;  the  gift  of 
life  was  the  first.  It  is  then  that  the  God-man  is  con- 
ceived and  born  of  human  nature  ;  that  self-consciousness, 
whereby  a  responsible  being  first  appears,  may  be  boldly 
called  a  conscience  and  a  God — and  unblessed  is  the  hour 
in  which  this  growing  human  being  finds  no  immaculate 
conception,  but  in  the  moment  of  birth  the  Saviour  and 
his  Judas  meet.  Too  little  attention  has  been  paid  to  this 
one  invaluable  moment,  its  environments  and  its  fruits. 
There  are  men  who  can  remember  far  back  to  this  bounding 


CUAP.  III.]  LEVANA.  103 

hour  of  existence,  in  which  their  self-consciousness  suddenly 
burst   through   the   clouds   like  a   sun,  and   wonderfully 
revealed  a  beaming  universe.     Life,  especially  moral  life,  ;. 
has  a  flight,  then  a  leap,  then  a  step,  then  a  halt ;  each  \ 
year  renders  a  man  less  easy  to  convert,  and  a  missionary  < 
can  effect  less  on  a  wicked  sexagenarian  than  an  auto-da-fe. 

§18. 

AVhat  is  true  of  the  heart  of  the  inner  man  is  true  also 
of  his  eye.  If  the  former,  like  an  ancient  Christian  church, 
must  be  turned  towards  the  morning  of  childhood ;  the 
latter,  like  a  Grecian  temple,  receives  its  greatest  light 
from  the  entrance  and  from  above.  For,  in  regard  to 
intellectual  education,  the  child  walks  hand  in  hand  with 
a  nature  which  never  returns;  this  nature  is  hitherto  a 
wintry  desert  full  of  spring  buds:  wherever  a  sunbeam 
strikes  it  (for  all  teaching  is  warming  into  life  rather  than 
sowing)  there  the  green  leaves  burst  forth,  and  the  whole 
child's  life  consists  of  warm  creation  days. 

Two  forces  are  at  work :  first,  childlike  trust,  that 
imbibing  power  without  which  there  could  be  no  education 
and  no  language,  but  the  child  would  resemble  a  bird 
taken  too  late  from  the  nest,  which  must  starve  because  it 
will  not  open  its  beak  to  the  hand  which  brings  its  food 
But  this  trust  shows  itself  only  in  the  minority,  and  sleeps 
in  the  mass  of  men  and  years.  The  second  power  is 
excitability.  As  in  the  physical,  so  in  the  spiritual  child, 
it  exists  m  the  highest  degree  in  the  physical  and  spiritual 
morning  of  life,  and  decreases  with  age,  until  at  last 
nothing  in  the  empty  world  excites  the  worn-out  man 
except  the  future.  Then  the  whole  universe  may  strive 
to  press  its  marks  upon  the  man,  but  on  the  hardened 
matter  only  weak  impressions  remain.  The  spirit  of  his 
age  and  nation  must  work  unceasingly  on  the  child :  at 
first  his  only  teachers  are  the  age  and  nation.  Moravians, 
Quakers,  and  especially  Jews,  give  a  direction  to  education 
which  predominates  over  the  surrounding  dissimilar  ages 
and  people :  and  although  even  they  are  influenced  by  the 
spirit  of  the  ago  and  of  the  multitude,  yet  it  impresses  them 
much  more  slightly  than  the  masses  who  are  differently 
educated.     And  however  the  spirit  of  the  age  may  move 


104  JEAN  PAUL   FRIEDRICH   RICHTEK.        [fRAG.  1. 

and  turn  the  heart,  that  little  world,  yet,  like  all  balls  re- 
volving on  themselves,  it  retains  two  innate,  immoveable 
poles — the  good  and  the  bad. 

§  19. 

Moreover,  the  whole  mass  of  people  does  not,  as  my  pre- 
decessor seems  to  assert,  rush  on  the  individual  human 
being.  \Only  some  few  in  later  as  in  early  life  affect  the 
formation  of  our  characters  ;  the  multitude  passes  by  like 
a  distant  army.  One  friend,  one  teacher,  one  beloved,  one 
club,  one  dining  table,  one  work  table,  one  house  are,  in 
our  age,  the  nation  and  national  spirit  influencing  the  in- 
dividual, while  the  rest  of  the  crowd  passes  him  without 
leaving  a  trace  behind.  But  when  do  individuals  affect 
us  so  powerfully  as  in  childhood  ?  or  when  so  long — for  in 
education,  as  in  law*,  long  means  ten  years — as  in  the  first 
decade  ?  The  waves  of  the  ocean,  besides,  before  reaching 
the  child,  break  against  four  walls  which  encompass  the 
water  of  his  education  or  crystallisation :  father,  mother, 
brothers  and  sisters,  and  a  few  extra  people  are  his  forming 
world  and  mould.  But,  all  this  deducted,  we  must  re- 
member in  education  that  its  power,  like  that  of  the  spirit 
of  the  age,  which  must  not  be  measured  by  individuals, 
but  by  the  concentrated  mass  or  majority, — must  be  judged 
not  by  the  present,  but  by  the  future :  a  nation  or  century 
educated  by  the  same  method,  presses  down  the  balance 
quite  differently  from  a  casual  individual.  But  we,  as 
ever,  desire  that  Fate,  or  the  Time  Spirit,  should  answer 
our  inquiries  by  return  of  post. 

§20. 

I  have  in  this  manner,  at  least  I  hope  so,  laid  my  own 
opinion,  as  well  as  his,  before  my  opponent  and  predecessor 
with  a  respect  which  is  not  so  common  among  the  learned 
body  as  many  an  opponent  of  an  opponent  believes.  For 
the  little  that  he  adds  about  the  absorption  of  the  indi- 
vidual in  the  mass  merits  not  contradiction  but  affirmation. 
The  uniformity  of  the  masses  permits  many  irregularities 

*  Longum  tempus  es*  d3cem  annorum.    Homm,  'prompt 


CHAP.  III.]  LEVANA.  106 

in  the  individual;  and  although,  the  tables  of  mortality 
are  correct,  no  one  hopes  and  fears  only  by  them.  On  the 
globe  itself  mountains  disappear,  and  from  these  at  a 
distance,  the  stony  path;  but  he  who  travels  it  sees  it 
clearly  enough  And  when  the  dear  good  man,  along  with 
his  complaints  of  the  ineffectiveness  of  good  education, 
gives  way  to  complaints  of  the  influence  of  bad  education, 
he  then  clearly  proves  by  a  capability  to  be  ill-educated 
a  capability  to  be  well-educated ;  and  so  education  is  to  be 
reproached  with  no  want  but  the  want  of  correct  tables  of 
the  perturbations  of  a  little  wandering  star  caused  by  the 
revolutions  of  other  planets;  and  will  we  not  readily 
concede  this  ? 

And  now,  worthy  Schoolarchy,  I  should  wish  to  know 
what  fur  :her  I  have  to  say  from  this  honourable  place  ? 


106  JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDEICH  RICHTER.      [fRAG.  IL 


SECOND  FKAGMENT. 

Chap.  I.  Spirit  and  Principle  of  Education,  §  21 — 24,  Chap.  IL 
The  Individuality  of  the  Ideal  Man,  §  25—30.  Chap.  III.  On 
the  Spirit  of  the  Age,  §  31 — 35.  Chap.  IY.  Religious  Education, 
§  36—38. 


CHAPTER  L 

SPIRIT   AND  PRINCIPLE  OF  EDUCATION. 
§21. 

The  end  desired  must  be  known  before  the  way.  All 
means  or  arts  of  education  will  be,  in  the  first  instance, 
determined  by  the  ideal  or  archetype  we  entertain  of  it. 
But  there  floats  before  common  parents,  instead  of  one 
archetype,  a  whole  picture  cabinet  of  ideals,  which  they 
impart  bit  by  bit  and  tattoo  into  theirchildren.  If  the  secret 
variances  of  a  large  class  of  ordinary  fathers  were  brought 
to  light,  and  laid  down  as  a  plan  of  studies,  and  reading 
catalogue  for  a  moral  education,  they  would  run  somewhat 
after  this  fashion  :  In  the  first  hour  pure  morality  must 
be  read  to  the  child,  either  by  myself  or  the  tutor :  in  the 
second  mixed  morality,  or  that  which  may  be  applied  to 
one's  own  advantage :  in  the  third,  "  do  you  not  see  that 
your  father  does  so  and  so  ?  "  in  the  fourth,  "  you  are  little 
and  this  is  only  fit  for  grown  up  people " :  in  the  fifth, 
"  the  chief  matter  is  that  you  should  succeed  in  the  world 
and  become  something  in  the  state  "  :  in  the  sixth,  "  not 
the  temporary  but  the  eternal  determines  the  worth  of  a 
man  ":  in  the  seventh,  "  therefore  rather  suffer  injustice 
and  be  kind  "  :  in  the  eighth,  "  but  defend  yourself  bravely 
if  any  one  attack  you  ":  in  the  ninth,  "  do  not  make  such 
a  noise,  dear  child  ":  in  the  tenth,  "  a  boy  must  not  sit  so 
quiet ";    in  the  eleventh,  "  you  must  obey  your  parents 


CHAP.  I.]  LEVANA.  107 

better  ":  in  the  twelfth,  "  and  educate  yourself."  So  by 
the  hourly  change  of  his  principles  the  father  conceals 
their  untenableness  and  one-sidedness.  As  for  his  wife,  she 
is  neither  like  him,  nor  yet  like  that  harlequin  who  came 
on  to  the  stage  with  a  bundle  of  papers  under  eacH  arm, 
and  answered  to  the  inquiry  what  he  had  under  his  right 
arm,  "  orders,"  and  to  what  he  had  under  his  left,  "counter- 
orders  ; "  but  the  mother  might  be  much  better  compared 
to  a  giant  Briareus,  who  had  a  hundred  arms,  and  a 
bundle  of  papers  under  each. 

This  government  of  the  demi-gods,  so  frequently  and  so 
suddenly  changed,  proves  clearly  not  only  the  absence,  but 
also  the  necessity  and  the  right  of  a  superior  god  :  for  in 
the  generality  of  souls  the  ideal,  without  which  men  would 
sink  down  into  four-footed  beasts,  reveals  itself  rather  by 
inner  discord  than  unison,  rather  by  judgments  on  others 
than  on  itself.  But  with  children  the  result  of  this  may 
be,  and  often  has  been,  various  and  half-coloured  pupils, 
whom  (unless  some  rare  peculiarity  makes  them  hard  and 
Uiiinjurable)  the  spirit  of  the  age,  or  the  accident  of 
necessity  and  pleasure,  can  easily  break  with  its  wheel,  or 
even  twine  round  it.  The  majority  of  educated  men  are, 
therefore,  at  present  dn  illumination  which  burns  off  by 
fits  and  starts  in  the  rain,  shining  with  interrupted  forms 
and  depicting  broken  characters. 

But  the  bad  and  impure  spirits  of  educational  systems 
are  yet  to  be  reduced  into  other  divisions.  Many  parents 
educate  their  children  only  for  themselves, — that  is,  to  be 
pretty  blocks,  or  soul-alarums,  which  are  not  set  to  move 
or  sound  when  stillness  is  required.  The  child  has  merely 
to  be  that  on  which  the  teacher  can  sleep  most  softly,  or 
drum  most  loudly ;  who  having  something  else  to  do  and 
to  enjoy,  wishes  to  be  spared  the  trouble  of  education, 
duly  but  most  unreasonably  expecting  its  fruits.  Hence 
these  dull  sluggards  are  so  often  angry  because  the  child 
is  not  at  once  cleverer,  more  consistent  and  gentler  than 
themselves.  Even  zealous  children's  friends,  like  states- 
men, often  resemble  inflammable  air,  which,  it  is  true, 
gives  light  itself,  but  in  so  doing  extinguishes  every 
other:  at  least  a  child  must  often  be  to  them,  what  a 
favourite  assistant  must  bo  to  a  minister,  sometimes  only 


108  JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRTCH  RICHTER.        [fRAG.  I. 

the  hand  which  copies,  sometimes  a  head  which  can  work 
by  itself. 

Kelated  to  those  teachers  who  wish  to  be  machine- 
makers,  are  the  educators  for  appearances  and  political 
usefulness.  Their  maxims,  thoroughly  carried  out,  would 
only  produce  pupils,  or  rather  sucklings,  passively  obedient, 
boneless,  well-trained,  patient  of  all  things — the  thick, 
hard,  human  kernel  would  give  place  to  the  soft,  sweet 
fruit-pulp — and  the  child's  clod  of  earth,  into  which 
growing  life  should  breathe  a  divine  spirit,  would  be  kept 
down  and  manured  as  though  it  were  but  a  corn  field, — 
the  edifice  of  the  state  would  be  inhabited  by  lifeless 
spinning  machines,  calculating  machines,  printing  and 
pumping  apparatus,  oil  mills,  and  models  for  mills,  pumps 
and  spinning  machines,  &c.  Instead  of  every  child,  bom 
without  past  and  without  future,  beginning  in  the  year  one, 
and  bringing  with  him  a  first  new-year,  the  state,  forsooth, 
must  step  into  and  usurp  the  place  of  a  remote  posterity, 
which  alone  could  make  him  spiritually,  as  well  as 
physically,  young  again,  and  substitute  for  him  a  system 
of  teaching  which  only  stops  his  wheels  and  surrounds 
them  like  hardened  ice. 

Nevertheless  the  man  comes  before  the  citizen,  and  our 
future,  beyond  the  world  as  well  as  in  our  own  minds,  is 
greater  than  both  :  how  then  have  parents,  who  in  the 
child  clothe  and  bind  up  the  man  into  a  servant, — for 
instance,  into  custom-house  officers,  kitchen-purveyors, 
jurists,  &c. — obtained  the  right  to  multiply  themselves 
otherwise  than  physically,  instead  of  begetting  spiritual 
embryos  ?  Can  care  of  the  body  impart  a  right  of  spiritual 
starvation,  or  of  good-living  such  as  the  devil  would  pre- 
scribe a  soul,  since  no  body  can  outbalance,  nay,  not  even 
balance,  a  soul  ?  The  ancient  German  and  Spartan  custom 
of  killing  weak-bodied  children  is  not  much  crueller  than 
that  of  propagating  weak-minded  ones. 

§22. 

Usefulness  to  others  is  only  separated  from  usefulness 
to  one's  self  as  dishonesty  is  from  uncharitableness  :  both 
are  united  in  self-love.     Hedgerows  and  Hercules-pillars, 


CHAP.  I.]  LEVANA.  109 

however  perfect,  are  blaraeable  as  soon  as  they  diminish 
the  free  world  of  a  future  man.  If  Mengs,  by  slavery  of 
body  and  soul,  made  his  son,  Eaphael  Mengs,  into  a 
painter — according  to  Winckelmann  the  Grecian  p^ate  only 
reached  art  through  and  for  freedom — he  did  but  adopt 
the  old  Egyptian  custom,  that  the  son  must  follow  the 
trade  of  his  father,  only  in  its  higher  branches. 

Much  of  this  holds  good  with  regard  to  domestic  orphan- 
house  chaplains,  who  transform  the  whole  children's  train- 
ing into  a  church-training  and  bible-institution,  and  make 
free,  happy  children  into  bowed-down  cloister  novices. 
For  the  human  being  is  not  formed  to  grow  altogether 
upwards,  like  plants  and  deer's  horns ;  nor  yet  altogether 
downwards,  like  feathers  and  teeth ;  but  like  muscles,  at 
both  ends  at  once :  so  that  Bacon's  double  motto  for  kings, 
•'  Remember  that  thou  art  a  man,  remember  that  thou  ait 
a  god,  or  vice-god,"  may  serve  also  for  children ! 

Education  can  neither  entirely  consist  of  mere  unfolding 
in  general,  or,  as  it  is  now  better  called,  excitement — for 
every  continued  existence  unfolds,  and  every  bad  educa- 
tion excites,  jnst  as  oxygen  positively  irritates — nor  in  the 
unfolding  of  all  the  powers,  because  we  can  never  act  upon 
the  whole  amount  of  them  at  once ;  as  little  as  in  the 
body  susceptibility  and  spontaneity,  or  the  muscular  and 
nervous  system,  can  be  strengthened  at  the  same  time. 

§23. 

A  purely  negative  education,  such  as  that  of  Rousseau 
only  seems  to  be,  would  at  once  contradict  itself  and 
reality  as  much  as  an  organic  living  body  full  of  powers 
of  growth  without  means  of  excitement:  even  the  few 
wild  children  who  have  been  captured  received  a  positive 
education  from  the  raging  and  flying  animals  around  them. 
A  child's  coffin  only  can  represent  a  negative  hedge-school, 
prince's  school,  and  school-door.  U'he  purely  natural  man — 
whom  Rousseau  sometimes,  indeed  very  often,  confounds 
with  the  ideal  man,  because  both  are  equally  pure  and 
distinct  from  the  mere  worldly  man — grows  entirely  by 
excitement.  Rousseau,  in  the  first  place,  prefers  arousing 
and  influencing  the  child  by  things  rather  than  by  men,  by 
impressions  rather  than  by  discourses ;  and,  in  the  second, 


110  JEAN   PAUL   FKIEDRICH   EICHTER.       [fRAG.  IT. 

recommends  a  more  healthy  and  useful  series  of  excitements, 
whilst  his  predecessors  in  teaching  had  hastened  to  use 
upon  the  susceptible  nature  of  children  the  most  powerful 
excitements,  such  as  God,  Hell,  and  the  Eod !  Only  give 
the  souls  of  children  free  passage  from  the  limhus  *  patrum,  et 
infantum  and  Nature,  he  seems  to  think,  will  unfold  her- 
self. This,  indeed,  she  does  every  where  and  at  all  times, 
but  only  in  ages,  countries  and  souls,  which  possess  a 
marked  individuality. 

§  24. 

Perhaps  we  may  find  the  centre  and  focus  of  these 
crossing  lines  and  beams  from  this  point  of  view:  If  a 
modern  Greek,  without  any  knowledge  of  the  mighty  past, 
were  depicting  the  present  condition  of  his  enslaved  race, 
he  would  find  it  approaching  the  highest  step  of  civilisation, 
morality  and  other  excellences,  until  a  magic  stroke 
revealed  to  his  astonished  eye  •  Greece  in  the  Persian  war, 
or  Athens  in  its  glory,  or  fruitful  Sparta,  like  an  empire 
of  the  dead,  like  Elysian  fields.  What  a  difierence  in  the 
same  nation,  vast  as  that  between  gods  and  men !  Never- 
theless, those  gods  are  not  genii,  nor  in  any  way  exceptions, 
but  a  people,  consequently  the  majority  and  average  of 
talents.  When  in  history  we  look  round  on  the  heights 
and  mountain  ranges  where  glorified  nations  dwell,  and 
then  down  into  the  abysses  where  others  lie  enchained,  we 
say  to  ourselves, — the  heights  that  a  multitude  has  reached 
thou  also  canst  reach,  if  thou  canst  not  descend  into  the 
depths.  The  spiritual  existence  that  a  nation,  a  majority 
of  any  people,  has  embodied  and  showed  forth  in  glory, 
must  dwell  and  breathe  in  every  individual,  else  could  he 
not  recognise  in  it  a  kindred  being. 

And  so,  indeed,  it  is.  .Every  one  of  us  has  within  him 
an  ideal  man  which  he  strives,  from  his  youth jip weirds,  to 
cherish  or  to  subdue.  This  holy  Soul-spirit  every  one 
beholds  most  clearly  in  the  blooming  time  of  all  his  powers 
— in  the  season  of  youth.  If  only  every  one  were  distinctly 
conscious  of  what  he  once  wished  to  become,  of  how  difier- 
ent  ar.d  much  nobler  a  path  and  goal  his  opening  eye, 
compared  with  his  fading  one,  beheld !     For  if  we  believe 

*  The  place  whitlier,  according  to  an  old  Catholicism,  unbaptised 
innocents  went  after  life. 


CHAP.  II.]  LEVANA.  Ill 

in  any  contemporaneous  growth  of  the  physical  and 
spiritual  man,  we  must  also  assume  that  the  blooming 
season  of  both  occurs  simultaneously.  Consequently,  his 
own  ideal  being  will  appear  most  clearly  to  the  man 
(though  it  be  only  in  vague  desires  and  dreams)  in  the 
full  bloom  of  youth.  And  does  not  this  show  itself  in  the 
meanest  soul  which,  though  fallen  during  its  pilgrimage 
through  sensual  and  covetous  afifections,  yet  once  attained 
a  higher  hope,  and  stood  within  the  gates  of  heaven  ?  At 
a  later  period,  in  the  multitude,  the  ideal  being  fades  day 
by  day,  and  the  man  becomes,  sinking  and  overpowered, 
the  mere  present,  a  creature  of  necessity  and  neighbourhood. 
But  the  universal  complaint,  "  What  might  I  not  have 
become !"  confesses  the  present  existence,  or  the  past 
existence,  of  an  older  Adam  in  paradise,  along  with  and 
before  the  old  Adam. 

But  the  ideal  man  comes  upon  the  earth  as  an  anthro- 
polithe  (a  petrified  man):  to  break  this  stony  covering 
away  from  so  many  limbs  that  the  rest  can  liberate  them- 
selves ;  this  is,  or  should  be.  Education. 

The  same  normal  being  who,  in  every  noble  soul,  remains 
as  house  tutor  and  silently  teaches,  should  be  outwardly 
manifested  in  the  child,  and  make  itself  independent,  free, 
and  strong.  But  first  of  all  we  must  discover  what  it 
is.  The  ideal  man  of  Fenelon — so  full  of  love  and  full 
of  strength — the  ideal  man  of  Cato  the  younger — so  full  of 
strength  and  full  of  love — could  never  exchange,  or  meta- 
morphose themselves  into  each  other,  without  spiritual 
suicide.     Consequently,  education  has  in 


CHAPTER   II. 

TO    DISCOVER   AND    TO   APPRECIATE   THE   INDIVIDUALITY    OF   THE 
IDEAL   MAN. 

§25. 

Let  a  needful  breathing  space  be  granted  here !  In 
most  languages,  like  a  symbol,  the  adjective  and  verb 
**  good  "  and  "  be  "  are  irregular.    Physical  power  expresses 


112  JEAN  PAUL   FEIEDEICH   RICHTEK.       [fRAG.  II, 

its  superfluity  in  the  variety  of  genera ;  hence  the  tem- 
perate zone  maintains  only  130  distinct  quadrupeds,  but 
the  torrid  220.  The  higher  kinds  of  life  separate,  according 
to  Zimmermann,  into  more  species ;  thus,  beyond  the  five 
hundred  species  of  the  mineral  kingdom,  lies  the  animal 
world  with  seven  million.  It  is  so  with  minds.  Instead 
of  the  uniformity  of  savage  nations  in  different  ages  and 
countries,  for  instance,  of  the  American  Indians  and  the 
ancient  Germans,  is  seen  the  many-branched,  varied  forms 
of  civilised  people  in  the  same  climate  and  period :  just  as 
the  art  of  gardening  multiplies  sorts  of  flowers  in  different 
colours ;  or  time  separates  a  long  strip  of  land  in  the  ocean 
into  islands.  In  so  far  a  meaning  may  be  attached  to 
the  saying  of  the  schoolmen,  that  every  angel  is  its  own 
species. 

§  26. 

Every  educator,  even  the  dullest,  admits  this,  and 
imprints  on  his  pupils  this  reverence  for  peculiarities,  that 
is,  for  his  own ;  at  the  same  time  he  labours  industriously 
to  secure  this  point — that  each  be  nothing  else  than  his 
own  step-son  or  bastard  self.  He  allows  himself  as  much 
individuality  as  is  necessary  to  eradicate  that  of  others  and 
plant  his  own  in  its  stead.  If,  in  general,  every  man  is 
secretly  his  own  copying  machine  which  he  applies  to 
others,  and  if  he  willingly  draws  all  into  ghostly  and 
spiritual  relationship  with  himself  as  soul's  cousins — as,  for 
instance.  Homer  gladly  converted  the  four  quarters  of  the 
world  into  Homerides  and  Homerists,  and  Luther  into 
Lutherans — much  more  will  the  teacher  strive,  in  the 
defenceless,  unformed  souls  of  children,  to  impress  and 
reproduce  himself ;  and  the  father  of  the  body  endeavour 
to  be  also  the  father  of  the  spirit.  God  grant  it  may 
seldom  succeed !  And  most  fortunately  it  does  not  pros- 
per !  <  It  is  only  mediocrity  which  supplants  that  of  others 
by  its' •  own ;  that  is,  one  imperceptible  individuality  by 
another  equally  imperceptible :  hence  the  multitude  of 
imitators.  From  a  wood-cut  some  thousand  impressions 
may  easily  be  taken ;  but  from  a  copperplate  only  a  tithe 
of  that  number. 

It  were  indeed    too    pitiable   for    Europe  if   it    were 


CHAP.  IT.]  T.EVANA.  113 

altogether  sown  with  Titnses,  as  every  Titus  secretly 
wishes,  or  with  Semproniuses,  as  the  Semproniuses  desire  1 
What  a  thick,  dead  sea  would  be  floatinpj  along  from  the 
usuriously-increasing  resemblance  of  teachers  and  pupils ! 

§27. 

As  every  teacher,  even  the  rigidest,  admits  that  he  highly 
values  two  strongly  marked  individualities — namely,  tliat 
before  the  deluge  which  formed  his  own,  and  that  own 
itself — and  regards  them  as  the  two  mountain  ranges 
which  give  birth  to  the  streams  below  and  the  vales  of 
Tempe ;  and  as,  moreover,  every  self-taught  man  maintains 
that  every  thing  remarkable  in  the  world  has  been  created 
by  adding  and  subtracting,  but  not  by  transplanting, 
individualities,  some  other  illusion  than  that  of  mere 
selfishness  must  be  at  the  foundation  of  this  disregard  of 
the  peculiarities  of  others. 

§28. 

It  is,  in  truth,  the  excusable  error  that  confuses  the 
ideal  with  ideals ;  and  which,  had  it  lived  during  the 
week  of  creation,  would  have  created  all  angels,  all  Eves, 
or  all  Adams.  But  although  there  is  only  one  Spirit  of 
Poetry,  there  are  many  different  forms  iu  which  it  can  in- 
corporate itself — comedies,  tragedies,  odes,  and  the  thin 
wasp's  body  of  the  epigram ;  so  the  same  moral  genius 
may  become  flesh — here  as  Socrates,  there  as  Lutlier,  here 
as  Phocion,  there  as  John.  As  no  finite  can  truly  reflect 
the  infinite  ideal,  but  only  narrowly  mirror  it  back  in 
parts,  such  parts  must  necessarily  be  infinitely  various; 
neither  the  dew-drop,  nor  the  mirror,  nor  the  ocean  reflect 
the  sun  in  all  its  greatness,  but  they  each  represent  it  round 
and  bright. 

§  29. 

1 — God  excepted,  who  is  at  once  the  great  original  1  and 
Thou. — is  the  noblest  as  well  as  the  most  incomprehensible 
thing  which  language  expresses,  or  which  we  contemplate. 
It  is  mere  at  once,   like  the  whole  world  of  truth  and 

t.  I 


114  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDKICH  EICHTEE.        [fRAG.  H 

conscience,  which,  without  J,  is  nothing.  We  must  ascribe 
the  same  thing  to  God  as  to  unconscious  matter  when  we 
think  of  the  being  of  the  one,  the  existence  of  the  other. 
A  second  I  is,  in  other  respects,  even  more  inconceivable  to 
us  than  a  first. 

Every  J  is  a  personal  existence,  consequently  a  spiritual 
individuality — for  a  bodily  one  is  so  extended  that  a 
portion  of  the  sky,  earth,  city  must  belong  to  it  as  a  body  ; 
— this  personal  existence  does  not  consist  in  Fichte's  theory 
of  rendering  the  I  objectively  subjective,  that  is,  in  the 
change  of  the  reflection  of  what  was  first  mirrored,  and 
which  every  where  returning  cuts  off  all  number  and 
time,  so  that  nothing  is  explained  by  it,  no  reflection  by  its 
counter-reflection.  Further,  it  does  not  consist  in  an  acci- 
dental weighing  backwards  and  forwards  of  single  powers  ; 
for,  first,  to  every  embodied  army  a  governing  and  con- 
trolling master-spirit  is  indispensable ;  and,  secondly,  all 
distinct  forces  in  organic  connection  rise  and  fall  with 
the  weather-glass,  age,  &c.,  alongside  the  unchanging 
individuality. 

But  it  is  an  inner  sense  of  all  senses ;  as  feeling  is  the 
sense  common  to  the  four  external  senses.  It  is  that  in 
others  on  which  our  reliance,  friendship  or  enmity  rests, 
and  is  either  an  enduring  inaptitude,  or  a  capacity  for  the 
arts  of  poetry  and  thought.  As  the  same  incomprehensible 
organic  unity,  subjecting  to  itself  disjointed  matter, 
governs  and  acts  differently  in  plants,  in  animals,  and  in 
their  every  variety,  and  multiplies  itself  in  organic  per- 
sonal existence,  so  also  does  the  higher  spiritual  unity. 
The  theological  question  of  the  schools  whether  the  (:iod- 
man  might  not  have  appeared  as  a  woman,  a  brute  animal, 
or  a  gourd,  is  symbolically  affirmed  by  the  infinite  variety 
of  individual  existences  in  which  the  Divine  Being 
manifests  himself.  It  is  that  which  unites  all  aesthetic, 
moral  and  intellectual  powers  into  one  soul ;  and,  like  the 
material  of  light,  itself  invisible,  gives  and  determines  the 
many-coloured  visible  universe,  whereby  first  that  philo- 
sophical pole- word  '  practical  reason,  jjure  I '  ceases  only 
to  stand  in  the  zenith  of  heaven  like  a  pole-star  which 
marks  no  north,  and  consequently  no  quarter  of  the  world. 

We  should  know  better  how  to  value  and  protect  this 


CHAP.  II.J  LEVANA.  115 

spirit  of  life,  this  individuality,  if  it  always  stood  forth  as 
strongly  as  in  the  man  of  genius.  For  we  all  perceive 
how  great  a  defeat  of  spirits  would  arise  in  a  passive  war 
of  giants  ;  if,  for  instance,  Kant,  Raffaelle,  Mozart,  Cato, 
Frederick  the  Great,  Charles  the  Twelfth,  Aristophanes, 
Swift,  Tasso,  and  so  forth,  were  all  forced  into  the  same 
press,  and  formed  in  the  same  mould.  Even  one  man  of 
genius,  by  the  exchange  and  compensation  of  individual 
peculiarities,  could  only  become  another  in  a  manner 
resembling  the  forcible  union  of  two  polypi.  But  if  the 
primary  faculty  of  an  ordinary  nature  be  broken,  what 
can  result  from  it  but  a  perpetual  confused  wandering 
about  itself — a  half  imitation  arising  in  spite  of.  not  out 
of,  it>elf — a  parasitical  worm  living  on  another  being,  the 
mimic  of  every  new  example,  the  slave  of  every  master  at 
his  elbow  ?  If  a  human  being  be  once  thrown  out  of  his 
own  individuality  into  a  foreign  one,  the  centre  of  gravity 
that  held  together  his  whole  inner  world  becomes  moveable 
and  wanders  from  spot  to  spot,  and  one  oscillation  passes 
into  another.  In  the  meantime  the  teacher  has  to 
separate  from  the  individuality  which  he  allows  to  grow 
another  which  he  must  either  bend  or  guide ;  the  one  is 
that  of  the  head,  the  other  that  of  the  heart.  Every 
intellectual  peculiarity,  be  it  mathematical,  artistic, 
philosophical,  is  a  beating  heart,  which  all  teaching  and 
gifts  only  serve  as  conducting  veins  to  fill  with  material 
for  working  and  motion.  At  this  exact  point  more  weight 
may  be  added  to  the  preponderating  weight  of  natural 
disposition ;  and  the  teacher  must  not  give  in  the  morning 
of  life  a  sleeping  draught — say  to  peculiar  talents  for  art. 
The  moral  nature,  however,  must  be  quite  differently 
treated ;  if  that  be  melody,  this  is  harmony :  you  must 
not.  enfeeble  an  Euler  by  engrafting  on  him  a  Petrarch, 
nor  the  latter  by  the  former ;  for  no  intellectual  power  can 
become  too  great,  and  no  painter  too  great  a  painter. 
But  every  moral  faculty  needs  to  have  its  boundaries 
fixed  in  order  to  the  cultivation  of  its  balancing  powers  ; 
and  Frederick  the  Great  may  take  his  flute,  and  Napoleon 
his  Ossian.  Here  education  may,  for  instance,  deliver 
sermons  on  peace  to  the  heroic  character,  and  charge  with 
electric  thunder  the  disposition  of  a  Siegwart.      So  one 

X2 


116  JEAN    PAUL   FRIEDRICH   EICHTER.       [fEAG.  II. 

j  might — since,  with  girls,  head  and  heart  are  reciprocal — 
I  frequently  put  a  cooking  spoon  into  the  hand  of  the  boy 
'  of  genius,  and  into  that  of  the  little  cook  by  birth  some 
romantic  feather  from  a  poet's  wing.  For  the  rest  let  it 
be  a  law  that,  as  every  faculty  is  holy,  none  must  be 
weakened  in  itself,  but  only  have  its  opposing  one  aroused ; 
by  which  means  it  is  added  harmoniously  to  the  whole. 

So,  for  instance,  a  weakly  affectionate  heart  must  not 
be  hardened,  but  its  sense  of  honour  and  purity  must  be 
strengthened;  the  daring  spirit  must  not  be  rudely 
checked  and  made  timid,  but  only  taught  to  be  loving  and 
prudent. 

The  conditions  may  now  be  required  of  me  under  which 
is  to  be  formed  the  character  of  the  child,  and  also  that  of 
the  prize  or  ideal  man  into  which  he  is  to  be  fashioned. 
But  for  that  purpose  one  book  among  the  endless  multitude 
of  books  would  not  serve ;  moreover  the  books  must  possess 
the  rare  gift  of  being  interpreters  of  the  dreams  and 
symbols  of  the  closely-folded  child's  character ;  which,  in 
a  child,  who  does  not  display  everything  matured  as  a 
grown-up  man,  but  only  budding,  would  be  as  difficult  to 
discover  as  a  butterfly  in  the  chrysalis  to  all  who  are  not 
Swammerdams.  But  alas !  three  things  are  very  difficult 
to  discover  and  to  impart — to  have  a  character — to  draw 
one — to  guess  one.  To  ordinary  teachers  a  naughty  trick 
seems  a  wicked  nature — a  pimple  or  a  pock-mark  as  parts 
of  the  countenance. 

If  one  must  translate  the  prize  and  ideal  man  into  words, 
one  might  perhaps  say,  that  it  is  the  harmonious  maximum 
of  all  individual  qualities  taken  together,  which,  without 
regard  to  the  resemblance  of  the  harmony,  is  yet  connected 
in  all  its  different  parts,  as  one  tone  in  music  is  with 
another.  Whosoever  now,  out  of  the  musical  abcdefg, 
should  change,  for  instance,  a  piece  set  in  a  to  b,  would 
injure  the  piece  much,  but  not  so  much  as  a  teacher  who 
would  convert  the  all- variously  arranged  natures  of 
children  into  one  uniform  tone. 

§  30. 

^  elevate  ^bove  the  spirit  ^L  the  age  must  be  re- 
garded  as  the   endT  of  education ;    and  this  must   stand 


CHAP.  III.]      .  LEVANA.  1 17 

clearly  developed  before  us  ere  we  mark  out  the  appointed 
road.  The  child  Is  not  to  be  educated  for  the  present — for 
this  is  done  without  our  aid  unceasingly  and  powerfully — 
but  for  the  remote  future,  and  often  in  opposition  to  tho 
immediate  future.  The  spirit  which  is  to  be  shunned 
must  be  known.     Permit  me  then  a 


THIRD   CHAPTER, 

ON  THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  AGE. 
§31. 

Yoa  invoke  the  Spirit  of  the  Age  freely  and  boldly,  but 
let  it  truly  appear  before  us  in  your  discourse,  and  do  you 
inswer?  Since  time  separates  into  ages,  as  the  rainbow 
into  falling  drops,  indicate  the  greatness  of  the  age  of 
whose  indwelling  spirit  you  speak.  Has  it  a  century  of 
duration ;  and  by  what  chronology  is  it  reckoned — the 
Jewish,  the  Christian,  the  Turkish,  or  the  French  ?  Does 
not  the  expression  "  spirit  of  the  century  "  easily  escape  the 
lips  of  a  man  because  he,  born  in  a  century  and  partly 
measuring  one  with  his  life,  really  means  nothing  more  by 
"  age "  than  the  little  day-span  which  the  eternal  sun 
describes  from  the  morning  to  the  evening  of  his  life  ? — Or 
(hjes  the  age  extend  from  one  great  event  (the  Reformation, 
for  instance)  to  another,  so  that  the  spirit  of  the  first 
vanishes  as  soon  as  the  second  is  bom?  And  what  re- 
volution will  be  considered  by  you  the  animating  one  of 
the  age — a  philosophical,  a  moral,  a  poetical,  or  a  political 
one? 

Further :  is  not  every  spirit  of  the  age  less  changing 
tlian  flying, — indeed,  already  flown;  what  might  be  more 
1  )roperly  called  the  spirit  of  that  immediately  preceding  ? 
1  or  ita  traces  presuppose  that  it  is  already  gone,  conse- 
(jiioTitly  gone  further.  And  only  from  lofty  heights  can  the 
l»;i<  kward  road  be  surveyed  and  the  future  estimated. 

l>ut  since  the  same  period  unfolds  at  the  present  time  a 
totally  different  spirit  in  Saturn — in  his  satellites — in  his 


118  JEAN   PAUL   FKIEDRICH  RICHTER.        [fRAG.  II. 

rings — Tipou  all  the  countless  worlds  of  the  pi'ey.ent ;  and 
again  in  London,  Paris,  Warsaw ;  and  since  it  follows  that 
the  present  moment  of  time  must  have  a  million  different 
spirits  of  the  age, — I  would  ask  you  where  the  invoked 
spirit  of  the  age  is  clearly  manifested — in  Germany, 
France,  or  where  ?  As,  before,  you  found  it  difficult  to 
mark  out  its  limits  in  time,  so  will  you  now  to  determine 
them  in  space. 

I  joartly  spare  you  the  great  question  which  concerns 
every  one,  yourself  among  the  number, — how  you,  how  all 
encircled  in  the  same  age,  can  raise  yourselves  so  far  above 
its  wa\es  as  to  be  able  to  observe  its  course,  not  merely  to 
feel  its  dark  irresistible  march  ?  And  does  not  the  stream 
which  bears  you  lead  into  an  ocean  whose  movements 
you  cannot  measure  because  it  has  no  shore  ? 

§  32.      , 

What  we  call  spirit  of  the  age  our  ancestors  called  the 
end  of  the  world,  the  latest  times,  signs  of  the  last  day, 
kingdom  of  the  devil  and  of  Antichrist.  Mere  melancholy 
names !  No  golden  or  innocent  age  ever  called  itself 
golden,  but  only  expected  one;  and  an  age  of  lead 
expected  one  of  arsenic  : — only  the  past  glitters,  as  ships 
occasionally  draw  after  them  a  shining  train.  But  the 
former  inter^Dretations  of  dreams  and  gazings  into  the 
present — would  that  some  one  would  collect  such  a  dream 
book  of  departed  great  spirits  ! — teach  us  to  mistrust  those 
now  made.  If  man,  from  the  observation  of  the  three 
quarters  of  the  globe,  could  not  prophetically  consti-uct  the 
fourth  from  the  combinations  of  matter,  far  less  can  he 
divine  a  future  from  the  more  complicated  ones  of  spirit. 
For  man  is  feeble  and  poor :  his  star-reading  of  the  future 
— a  mere  strengthening  or  weakening  of  the  present — sees 
only  a  crescent  moon  in  the  sky,  which  waxes  and  wanes 
in  unison  with  himself,  but  no  sun.  Every  one  regards 
his  own  life  as  the  new-year's  eve  of  time,  and  also,  like 
the  superstitious,  his  dreams,  woven  from  memories,  as 
prophecies  for  the  year.  Thence  there  always  comes — 
not  the  foretold  good  or  evil,  nor  yet  its  opposite,  but 
Bomething  quite  different,  which  receives  the  prophecies 


CHAP.  III.]  LEVANA.  119 

and  their  objects  as  an  ocean  does  the  rivers,  and  resolves 
them  into  the  circle  of  its  waves.  For,  in  the  moment 
when  you  are  prophesying  in  the  desert,  the  fine  seed- 
pollen  of  an  oak  falls  upon  the  earth  and,  in  a  century, 
grows  up  to  be  a  forest.  How,  indeed,  could  man 
accurately  divine  any  approaching  age  without  at  the 
same  time  knowing  and  depicting  all  after  times?  He, 
for  instance,  who,  from  the  present  course  and  position  of 
the  winds,  clouds  and  planets  during  one  academical  half 
year,  could  accurately  guess  the  weather  of  a  second, 
might  and  must  be  able,  from  the  data  he  had  foretold,  to 
decipher  the  third  season's  weather,  and  from  that  every 
succeeding  one — supposing  no  intervention  ;  —but  thei  e 
do  always  intervene  comets^  earthquakes,  the  clearing  of 
forests,  or  the  growth  of  new  ones,  and  all  the  other 
power  of  the  Almighty.  In  the  same  way,  before  the  eye 
of  the  seer,  one  century  after  another  must  be  produced  in 
regular  order,  consequently  thousands  of  years,  and  finally, 
the  whole  time  which  can  dwell  upon  an  earth;  supposing 
as  has  been  already  said,  nothing  intervenes.  But,  heavens ! 
What  is  there  does  not  intervene!  The  prophet  himself 
— and  the  freedom  of  the  spiritual  world — and  the 
Almighty,  who  here  withdraws  and  there  sends  forth 
spirits  and  suns.  Thus  it  is  that  every  one  lives  so 
completely  in  a  spiritual  twilight  (a  beautiful  word  for 
that  dusky  time  of  day)  that  God  himself  decides  which  of 
the  two  contending  lights  shall  gain  the  victory  by  a  new 
one  from  the  sun  or  the  moon,  which  men  so  frequently 
mistake  the  one  for  the  other. 

§33. 

How,  indeed,  were  this  foregoing  two-and-thirtieth 
paragraph  to  be  written  or  to  be  comprehended,  if 
something  more  were  not  added  about  it ;  namely,  a  three- 
and- thirtieth  which  follows  after  it?  The  older  the 
world  grows,  the  more  complacently  can  it,  and  will  it, 
adopt  the  prophesying  character  of  an  elder.  From  tho 
fore-world  a  spirit  speaks  an  ancient  language  to  us,  which 
we  should  not  understand  if  it  were  not  born  with  us. 
It  is  the  Spirit  of  Eternity,  which  judges  and  overlooks 
every  spirit  of  time.     And  what  does  it  sa;y  of  the  present? 


120  JEAN   PAUL   FEIEDEICn   RTCHTEE.         [fKAG.  II. 

Very  hard  words : — It  says  thjat  the  age  can  now  more 
easily  raise  up  a  great  people  than  a  great  man ;  because 
the  powerful  union  springing  from  civilisation  joins 
together  the  men  of  one  spirit  like  the  vapour-drops  of  a 
huge  steam  engine ;  so  that  even  war  is  now  only  a  war- 
game  between  two  living  creatures.  Something,  it  says, 
must  have  decayed  in  our  age,  for  even  the  mighty 
earthquake  of  the  Revolution  before  which  for  centuries, 
as  before  a  physical  earthquake,  an  infinite  multitude  of 
worms  had  crept  out  of  the  ground  and  covered  it,  has 
produced  and  left  behind  it  nothing  greater  than  pretty 
wings  on  these  said  worms.  The  Spirit  of  Eternity,  which 
judges  the  heart  and  the  world,  strongly  declares  what 
spirit  is  wanting  to  the  present  men  inspired  by  the 
senses,  to  these  fire-worshippers  of  the  passions, — the  Holy 
one  of  Him  who  is  above  the  earth.  The  ruins  of  His 
temple  sink  lower  and  lower  into  the  present  earth. 
Prayer  is  thought  to  draw  along  with  it  the  false  lights 
of  fanaticism.  The  apprehension  and  belief  in  what 
is  beyond  the  world,  which  formerly  extended  its  roots 
under  the  foulest  ages,  bear  no  fruits  in  our  pure  thin, 
air.  If,  formerly,  religion  was  in  war,  there  is  now  no 
longer  war  in  religion — there  has  grown  for  us  out  of 
the  world  a  mighty  edifice,  out  of  ether  a  cloud,  out 
of  God  a  mere  power,  out  of  heaven  a  coffin  ! 

At  last  the  Spirit  of  Eternity  holds  up  before  us  our 
shamelessness,  by  which  we,  in  our  darkness,  have  per- 
mitted to  play,  as  a  festive  illumination,  the  flames  of 
anger,  love  and  desire,  from  which  all  religions,  all 
ancient  nations,  all  great  men  have  held  themselves  aloof, 
or  regarded  with  shame :  and  it  says  that  we,  living  only 
in  our  hate  and  hunger,  like  other  decaying  corpses, 
only  retain  our  teeth  uninjured,  the  instruments  both  of 
revenge  and  enjoyment.  Passion  belongs  of  right  to  the 
sickness  of  the  age ;  nowhere  is  found  so  much  impatience, 
carelessness,  indulgence  towards  self  and  unrelenting 
selfishness  towards  others  as  on  the  sick-bed.  Now  this 
century  lies  upon  a  sick  bed.  As  among  the  Spartans 
the  men  cut  away  a  full  prominent  breast  as  something 
womanish,*  so  is  the  same  thing  done  now  in  spiritual 

*  In  Russia  in  former  times  it  was  the  fadiion  for  men  to  stuff  out 
their  clotliin":  into  lar^e  false  breasts. 


CHAP.  III. J  LEVANA.  121 

matters  under  the  same  pretext ;  and  the  heart  mnst  be  as 
hard  as  the  cavity  of  the  chest  above  it.  Finally,  th^re 
are  some  very  cultivated  men  who  split  themselves  in 
opposite  directions  towards  heaven  and  hell,  as  a  sala- 
mander cut  in  two  runs  forward  with  its  front,  backwards 
with  its  hind  part. 

§  34. 

So  speaks  the  severe  spirit  within  us,  the  Eternal  one ; 
but  it  becomes  milder  if  we  hear  it  to  the  end.  Every 
heartfelt  lamentation  and  weeping  over  any  age  points, 
like  a  spring  on  a  mountain,  to  some  higher  mountain  or 
peak :  only  those  nations  remain  sunk  in  their  lethargy 
who  go  in  the  same  dull  path  from  age  to  age,  not  lament- 
ing over  themselves  but  over  others  :  and  those  who  suffer 
from  the  mental  falling-sickness  of  the  French  philosophy 
have,  like  bodily  epileptics,  no  consciousness  of  their  malady, 
but  only  pride  in  their  strength.  Sorrow  of  the  spirit  (as 
Kight,  according  to  the  Greeks)  is  the  mother  of  gods  j 
though  that  of  the  body  is  a  dark  mist  bringing  poison 
and  death.  The  bold  and  soaring  thought  of  the  I'almud- 
ists — that  even  God  prays ;  like  that  of  the  Greeks,  that 
Jupiter  was  subject  to  Fate — receives  a  meaning  from  the 
lofty  though  often  conquered  longings  of  the  soul,  which 
tlio  Infinite  himself  has  planted  within  us. 

One  religion  after  another  fades  away,  but  the  religious 
ncuse,  which  created  them  all,  can  never  become  dead  to 
humanity :  consequently,  it  will  only  manifest  and  lead 
its  future  life  in  more  purified  forms.  The  saying  of 
Tyrtaeus,*  that  God,  in  the  commencement,  appeared  to 
men  in  their  own  likeness,  then  as  a  voice,  and  afterwards 
only  in  dreams  and  by  inspiration  (or  spiritual  illumina- 
tion), has  a  beautiful  signification  for  ours,  and  all  future 
ages,  if  by  dream  we  understand  poetry,  and  by  illumina- 
tion, philosophy.  So  long  as  the  word  God  endures  in  a 
language  so  long  will  it  direct  the  eyes  of  men  upwards. 
It  is  with  the  Eternal  as  with  the  sun,  which,  if  but  its 
smallest  part  can  shine  un-eclipsed,  prolongs  the  day  and 
gives  its  rounded  image  in  the  dark  chamber.  Even  in 
France,  which  could  for  a  short  time  observe  a  total  eclipse 
•  Tyrtficua  de  Apparitione  Dei,  c.  17. 


122  JEAN   PAUL    FETEDRlCIl   RICIITEE.        [fEAG.  II. 

of  the  STin,  arose  a  Chateaubriand,  a  St.  Martin  and  liis 
admirers,  and  other  idndred  spirits.  Our  present  age  is 
indeed  a  criticising  and  a  critical  one,  wavering  between 
the  desire  and  the  inability  to  believe, — a  chaos  of  timeg 
struggling  against  one  another  :  but  even  a  chaotic  world 
must  have  a  centre,  revolution  round  that  point,  and  au 
atmosphere ;  there  is  no  such  thing  as  mere  disorder  and 
confusion,  but  even  that  presupposes  its  opposite  in  order 
to  begin.  The  present  religious  wars  on  paper  and  in 
the  brain — very  different  from  former  ones,  which  were 
tempests  full  of  heat,  rage,  devastation  and  fertilisation — 
rather  resemble  the  northern  lights  (thunder  and  light- 
ning of  the  higher  and  colder  quarters  of  the  sky)  full  of 
noisy  lights  without  blows,  full  of  strange  shapes  and  full 
of  frost,  without  rain  and  in  the  night.  Does  not  in  fact, 
the  bold  self -consciousness — the  life  of  this  age — extend 
still  further  the  original  character  of  man  and  mind  ! 
And  can  the  character  of  men,  the  mental  waking,  ever 
be  too  much  awake  ?  At  present  it  is  only  not  sufficiently 
so ;  for  an  object  is  necessary  to  reflection,  as  its  absence 
is  to  thoughtlessness  ;  and  the  common  minds  of  the  age 
are  too  impoverished  to  give  a  rich  field  to  reflection.  But 
there  is  one  strange,  ever-returning  spectacle  :  That  every 
age  has  regarded  the  dawning  of  new  light  as  the  fire-de- 
stroyer of  morality ;  while  that  very  age  itself,  with  heart 
uninjured,  finds  itself  raised  one  degree  of  light  above  the 
preceding !  Is  it,  perhaps,  that  as  light  travels  faster  than 
heat,  and  as  it  is  more  easy  to  work  upon  the  head  than 
on  the  heart,  the  burst  of  light,  by  its  suddenness,  always 
appears  inimical  to  the  unprepared  heart  ? 

To  the  present  age  is  ascribed  productiveness  and 
changeableness  of  opinions,  and  at  the  same  time  indifference 
to  opinions.  But  that  cannot  arise  from  this  :  no  man  in 
all  corrupted  Europe  can  be  indifferent  to  truth  as  such  ; 
for  it,  in  the  last  resort,  decides  upon  his  life ;  but  every 
one  is  at  last  become  cold  and  shy  towards  the  erring 
teachers  and  preachers  of  truth.  Take  the  hardest  heart 
and  brain  which  withers  away  in  any  capital  city,  and 
only  give  him  the  certainty  that  the  spirit  which  ap- 
proaches brings  down  from  eternity  the  key  which  opens 
and  shuts  the  so  weighty  gates  of  his  life- prison  of  deatli. 


CHAP.  ni.j  LEV  ANA.  123 

and  of  heaven, — and  the  dried-up  worldly  man  so  long  as 
he  has  a  care  or  a  wish,  m:ist  seek  for  a  truth  which  can 
reveal  to  him  that  spirit. 

The  present  march  of  light  indicates  anything  rather 
than  standing  still ;  and  it  is  only  this  which  begets  and 
immortalizes  poison,  as  it  is  on  stagnant  air  that  tempests 
and  whirlwinds  break.  Certainly  we  are  very  little  able 
to  determine  in  what  manner  a  brighter  age  than  that  we 
have  experienced  will  be  educed  from  the  present  troublous 
fermentation.  Every  varied  age, — and  therefore  our  own, 
— is  only  a  spiritual  climate  for  an  approaching  spiritual 
seed  ;  but  we  do  not  know  what  foreign  seed  heaven  will 
cast  into  it. 

Every  sin  appears  new  and  near,  as  in  painting  black 
stands  out  most  strongly ;  man  is  readily  accustomed  to 
the  repetition  of  love,  but  not  to  the  repetition  of  injustice. 
Thence  every  one  regards  his  own  age  as  morally  worse, 
and  intellectually  better  than  it  really  is;  for  in  science 
the  new  is  an  advance ;  but  in  morals  the  new,  as  a  contra- 
diction to  our  inner  ideals  and  our  historic  idols,  is  ever  a 
retrogression.  As  the  errors  of  nations  in  past  ages,  unlike 
decorative  paintings,  seem  very  distorted  and  shapeless, 
because  distance  hides  from  us  their  finer  and  true  com- 
pleteness ;  so,  on  the  other  sid^,  the  black  sin-stains  of  the 
past,  of  the  Eoman  and  Spartan  for  example,  show  softened 
and  rounded,  and,  as  on  a  moon,  the  high  rugged  shadow  nf 
the  past  falls  round  and  transparent  on  the  present.  For 
instance,  if  men  estimate  the  worth  of  the  age  after  a  war, 
that  most  ancient  barbarism  of  humanity,  and  especially 
after  the  bad  innovations  consequent  upon  it,  then  the 
spirit  ot  the  age  rises  before  this  touch  of  death  in  frightful 
illumination  and  distortion.  But  war,  as  the  general  storm 
in  the  moral  world,  and  the  tongue  and  heart-confusing 
Babel  of  the  physical  world,  had  in  every  age  repeated 
injustices  which  only  appeared  new  because  each  had  heard 
from  the  preceding  age  nothing  save  the  number  of  the 
vanquished  armies  and  towns ;  but  experienced  in  itself 
the  sufferings.  On  the  contrary,  our  age  has,  more  than 
any  other,  besides  a  certain  humanity  of  war  in  respect  to 
life,  also  a  growing  insight  into  its  unlawfulness. 
,   Among  nations  the  head  has  at  all  times  preceded  the 


124  JEAN  PAUL   FRIEDRICH  RICHTER.        [fRAG.  II. 

heart  by  centuries,  as  in  tlie  slave  trade ;  yes,  by  thousands 
of  years,  as  will  perhaps  be  the  case  in  war. 

§  35. 

Since  modes  of  life  beget  modes  of  thought,  and  opinions 
actionKS,  and  head  and  heart,  spiritually  as  well  as 
physically,  mutually  improve  or  injure  each  other,  so  has 
fate,  when  both  are  to  be  healed  at  once,  only  one  cure,  and 
that  a  long  one ;  the  harsh  viper-like  cure  of  affliction.  If 
sorrow  purify  men,  why  not  nations  ?  Certainly,  and  it 
is  for  this  reason  that  men  perceive  it  less,  if  wounds  and 
fast-days  improve  the  one,  battle-fields  and  centuries  of 
jDcnance  do  the  other,  and  generations  must  sink  sadly  and 
sorrowfully  to  destruction.  Not  by  a  splendid  martial 
funeral  with  firing  of  cannon,  but  by  a  battle  of  the 
elements,  is  the  sky  made  blue  and  the  earth  fruitful.  At 
the  same  time  in  history,  as  in  the  almanac,  the  thick  dull 
St.  Thomas's  day  is  shorter  than  the  bright  warm  St. 
John's  day,  although  both  conduct  into  new  seasons  of  the 
year. 

But  until,  and  in  order  that  our  children  and  children's 
children  may  pass  through  the  winter  centuries,  this  it  is 
that  nearly  affects  us  and  education.  We  must  meet  the 
great  entanglement  by  partial  unravellings.  The  child 
must  be  armed  against  the  future ;  yes,  even  against  the 
close  pressing  present,  with  a  counterbalancing  weight  of 
three  powers  against  the  three  weaknesses  of  the  will,  of 
love,  and  of  religion.  Our  age  has  only  a  passionate  power 
of  desire,  like  the  brute,  the  madman,  the  sick,  and  each 
weakest  thing ;  but  not  that  energy  of  will  which  was  most 
nobly  displayed  in  Sparta  and  Eome — in  the  Stoa,  and 
in  the  early  Church.  And  now  the  arts,  as  the  state 
formerly  did,  must  harden  the  J^oung  spirit  and  subdue 
the  will.  The  uniform  colour  of  a  stoic  oneness  must 
extinguish  the  vulgar  praise  of  the  various  tiger-spots  and 
serpent  brilliancy  of  passionate  agitation  ;  the  girl  and  the 
bo}^  must  learn  that  there  is  something  in  the  ocean  higher 
than  its  waves ;  namely,  a  Christ  who  calls  upon  them. 

When  the  stoic  energy  of  will  is  formed,  there  is  then 
a  loving  spirit    made   free.     Fear  is  more  egoist  c  than 


CHAP.  I  V.J  LEVANA.  125 

courage  because  it  is  more  needy ;  the  exausting  parasitical 
plants  of  selfishness  only  attach  themselves  to  decayed 
trunks.  But  power  kills  what  is  feeble,  as  strong 
decoction  of  quassia  kills  flies.  If  man,  created  more  for 
love  than  for  opposition,  can  only  attain  a  free  clear  space, 
he  possesses  love ;  and  that  is  love  of  the  strongest  kind, 
which  builds  on  rocks,  not  on  waves.  Let  the  bodily  heart 
be  the  i)attem  of  the  spiritual ;  easily  injured,  sensitive, 
lively,  and  warm,  but  yet  a  tough  free-beating  muscle 
behind  the  lattice  work  of  bones,  and  its  tender  nerves 
are  difficult  to  find. 

As  there  is  no  contest  about  the  nature  of  power  and 
love,  but  only  about  the  ways  to  attain  them  (these, 
however,  penetrate  deep  into  the  matter) ;  but  as  about 
religion,  on  the  contrary,  the  doubts  of  many  must  first 
be  solved  as  to  whether  there  be  only  one,  and  whether 
different  paths  lead  to  it ;  so  the  third  point,  according  to 
which  the  child  is  to  be  educated  against  the  age,  must  aim 
at  placing  before  the  soul  first,  not  the  means,  but  the 
right  to  educate  religiously.  Power  and  love  are  two 
opposing  forces  of  the  inner  man ;  but  religion  is  the 
equal  union  of  both,  the  man  within  the  man. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

RBLIGIOUS  EDUCATION. 


§  30. 

Beuoion  is  now  no  longer  a  national,  but  a  household 
goddess.  Our  little  age  is  a  magnifying  glass,  through 
which,  as  is  well  known,  the  exalted  ajjpears  flat  and 
level.  Since  wo  now  send  all  our  children  out  into  a  town 
like  futurity,  in  which  the  broken  church  bells  only  dully 
call  the  i)opulous  market  place  to  the  silent  church,  we 
must,  more  anxiously  then  ever,  seek  to  give  them  a  house 
— Xff  prayer  in  the  heart,  anl  folded  hands,  anJ  humility 
before  the  invTslWfi  World,  if  we  believe  in  a  religion  and 
distinguish  it  from  morality. 


126  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH    RIGHT  Eli.       [fRAG.  II. 

The  history  of  nations  determines  that  there  is  this 
separation.  There  have  been  many  religions,  but  there  is 
only  one  code  of  morals ;  in  those  a  god  has  always  become 
a  man,  and,  therefore,  been  concealed  under  manj'-  folds ; 
in  this  a  man  has  become  God,  and  been  clearly  manifested. 
The  middle  ages  had,  along  with  moral  churchyards  full 
of  dead  bodies  and  rank  vegetation,  full  of  cruelty  and 
lust,  also  churches  and  spires  for  the  religious  sentiment. 
In  our  times,  on  the  contrary,  the  sacred  groves  of  religion 
are  cleared  and  trodden  down,  and  the  public  roads  of 
morality  made  straighter  and  more  sure.  Ah !  a  con- 
temporaneous decline  of  religion  and  morality  would  be 
too  sad !  The  age  will  conceal  the  departure  of  me  sense 
for  the  heavenly  by  the  greater  sharpness  and  severity 
of  that  for  the  mcral ;  and  at  least  by  small,  delicate,  and 
therefore  more  numerous  sides,  acquire  a  moral  breadth. 
As  men  in  towns,  where  they  cannot  build  in  width  build 
in  height,  so  we,  reversing  the  matter,  build  in  width 
instead  of  in  height ;  more  over  the  earth  than  into  the 
sky.  We  may  truly  say  that  France,  in  general,  with  its 
chemical,  physical,  mathematical  and  warlike  noon-day 
lights,  can  hardly  behold  in  the  starry  heaven  of  religion 
more  than  a  last  shadowy  quarter  of  the  moon,  resembling 
rather  a  cloud  than  a  star ;  whilst  in  England  and 
Germany  religion  is  still  at  least  i3een  as  a  distant  milky- 
way,  and  on  paper  as  a  star  chart;  but  one  could  not, 
without  injustice,  describe  the  religious  difference  of  these 
countries  as  a  moral  one.  Was,  therefore,  and  is  Stoicism, 
this  noble  son  of  morality,  as  love  is  its  daughter,  in  and 
by  itself  religion  ?  If  the  difference  between  religion  and 
morality  were  not  founded  on  something  true,  it  were  in- 
comprehensible how  so  many  fanatical  sects  of  the  early 
and  later  centuries — for  instance,  the  Quietists — could  have 
arrived  at  the  illusive  belief  that  in  the  inmost  enthusiastic 
love  of  God  enduring  sinfulness  consumes  itself,  so  that 
none  remains  as  it  does  in  the  worldly  man.  It  is  true 
that  religiousness,  in  its  highest  degree,  is  identical  with 
morality,  and  this  with  ■'^hat ;  but  that  equally  pertains 
to  the  highest  degree  of  every  power;  and  every  sun 
wanders  only  through  the  heavenly  ether.  All  that  is 
divine  must  as  certainly  meet  and  unite  with  morality,  as 


/^ 


CHAP.  IV.J  LEVANA.  127 

science  and  art ;  so  that  in  every  soul  rescued  from  sin 
there  must  as  certainly  be  religious  Tabors  as  there  are 
hills  in  the  crater  of  Etna. 

It  must  be  understood  that  we  do  not  here  speak  of  that 
beggar  religion  which  only  prays  and  sings  before  the 
gates  of  heaven  until  the  Peter's  pence  are  bestowed 
upon  it. 

§  37.  .-.«,^^^^j^ 

What  then  is  Religion?  Prayerfully  pronounce  the  '  . 
answer.  Xhe  Belief  in  God.  It  is  not  only  a  sense  for 
the  holy,  and  a  belief  in  the  invisible,  but  a  presentiment 
of  it,  without  which  no  kingdom  of  the  incomprehensible 
were  conceivable.  Efface  God  from  the  heart,  and  every- 
thing which  lies  above  or  below  the  earth  is  only  a  recur- 
ring enlargement  of  it ;  that  w^hich  is  above  the  earth 
would  become  only  a  higher  grade  of  mechanism  and, 
consequently,  earthly. 

If  the  question  be  put.  What  do  you  mean  by  the  word 
God?  I  will  let  an  old  German,  Sebastian  Frank,* 
answer :  "  God  is  an  unutterable  sigh  lying  in  the  depths 
of  the  soul."  A  beautiful,  profound  saying  !  Hut  as  the 
unutterable  dwells  in  every  soul,  it  must  be  manifested  to 
every  stranger  by  words.  Let  me  give  to  the  God-fearing 
Spirit  of  every  age  the  words  of  our  times,  and  listen  to 
what  it  says  of  religion. 

*'  Religion  is,  in  the  beginning,  the  learning  of  God; — 
hence  the  great  name  Divine,  one  learned  about  God —  -^..^ 
truly  religion  is  the  blessedness  arising  from  a  knowledge  y 
of  God.  Without  God  we  are  lonely  throughout  eternity ; 
but  if  we  have  God  we  are  more  warmly,  more  intimately, 
more  steadfastly  united  than  by  friendship  and  love.  I  am 
then  no  longer  alone  with  my  spirit.  Its  great  first  Friend, 
the  Everlasting,  whom  it  recognises,  the  inborn  Friend  of 
its  innermost  soul  will  abandon  it  as  little  as  it  can  do 
itself,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  impure  or  empty  whirl  of 
trifles  and  of  sins,  on  the  market-place  and  the  battle- 
field, I  stand  with  closed  breast  in  which  the  Almighty 
and  All-holy  speaks  to  me,  and  reposes  before  me  like  a 
near  sun,  behind  which  the  outer  world  lies  in  darkness. 

•  "  Zinkrefd  der  Teutwhon  scLarpfdinnige  klugc  SpriicLo,"  1639. 


128  JEAN   PAUL   FBIEDRICH   RICHTER.        [fRAG.  II, 

I  have  entered  into  His  clinrcli,  the  temple  of  the  universe, 
and  remain  therein  blessed,  devout,  pious,  even  if  the 
temple  should  become  dark,  or  cold,  or  undermined  by 
graves.  What  I  do,  or  suffer,  is  no  sacrifice  for  Him,  it 
counts  as  little  as  one  made  to  myself ;  I  love  Him  whether 
I  suffer  or  not.  The  flame  from  heaven  falls  on  the  altar 
of  sacrifice  and  consumes  the  beast,  but  the  flame  and  the 
priest  remain.  If  my  great  Friend  demand  something 
from  me  the  heaven  and  the  earth  seem  glorious  to  me,  and 
I  am  happy  as  He  is ;  if  He  deny  me  anything,  it  is  a 
storm  en  the  ocean,  but  it  is  spanned  by  rainbows,  and  I 
recognise  above  it  the  kindly  sun  which  has  no  tempestuous 
sides,  but  only  sunshiny  ones.  A  code  of  morality  only 
rules  bad,  unloving  souls,  in  order  that  they  may  first 
become  better  and  afterw'ards  good.  But  the  loving  con- 
templation of  the  soul's  first  Friend,  who  abundantly 
animates  those  laws,  banishes  not  merely  the  bad  thoughts 
which  conquer,  but  these  also  which  tempt.  As  the  eaglo 
flies  high  above  the  highest  mountains,  so  does  true  lovo 
above  struggling  duty. 

"  Where  religion  is,  there  both  men,  and  beasts,  and  tlio 
whole  world  are  loved.  Every  being  is  a  moving  temple 
of  the  Infinite.  Everything  earthly  purifies  and  suns 
itself  in  the  thought  of  Him;  only  one  earthly  thing 
remains  darkly  existent,  sin,  the  true  annihilation  of  the 
soul ;  or  the  unceasing  Tantalus,  Satan. 

"  One  may  with  some  right  speak  to  others  about  that 
of  which  one  never  speaks  to  oneself:  for  within  me  He  is 
so  near  me  that  I  can  with  difficulty  separate  His  word 
and  mine ;  for  from  the  second  self  my  own  is  reflected, 
and  I  only  find  Him  who  illumines  myself  as  well  as  the 
dew-drop. 

"  But  if  it  be  no  error  to  believe  all  this,  how  wilt  Thou, 
O  God !  appear  to  those  who  have  overcome  the  agitations 
of  life  in  the  one  still  hour  of  death ;  then,  when  world 
after  world,  human  being  after  human  being,  has  dis- 
appeared, and  nothing  but  the  Eternal  remains  with  the 
mortal-immortal  ?  He  who  brings  God  with  him  into  the 
last  darkest  night  cannot  know  what  it  is  to  die ;  for  he 
beholds  the  Eternal  Star  in  the  boundless  distance." 

If  3^ou  do  not  believe  that  religion  is  the  poetry  of 


CHAP.  IV.J  LEVANA.  129 

morality,  the  lofty,  nay,  the  loftiest,  style  of  life,  think 
less  of  the  mystic  enthusiasts,  who,  as  despisers  of  the 
doctrine  of  happiness,  were  willing  to  be  damned  if  but 
the  love  of  God  remained  within  them,  than  of  Fenelon  : 
could  you  be  purer,  more  steadfast,  richer,  more  self-sacri- 
ficing, or  more  blessed  than  he,  at  once  child,  woman,  man, 
and  angel  ? 

§38. 

How  then  is  the  child  to  be  led  into  the  new  world  of 
religion  ?  Not  by  arguments.  Every  step  of  finite  know- 
ledge can  be  reached  by  learning  and  perseverance;  but 
the  Infinite,  which  supports  the  end  of  those  steps,  can 
only  be  seen  at  a  glance,  not  reached  by  counting;  we 
arrive  there  by  wings,  not  by  steps.  To  prove,  as  to 
doubt,  the  existence  of  God,  is  to  prove  or  to  doubt  the 
existence  of  existence.  The  soul  seeks  its  Original — not 
merely  an  original  world  near  the  present  one — that 
freedom  from  which  finite  existence  received  its  laws  :  but 
it  could  not  seek  if  it  did  not  know  and  did  not  possess. 
The  greatness  of  religion  is  not  confined  to  one  opinion,  it 
extends  over  the  whole  man ;  as  greatness,  of  whatever 
kind,  resembles  the  rock-bound  mountains,  one  of  which  is 
never  found  alone  in  a  level  plain,  but  rises  up  among 
neighbouring  heights  and  extends  into  a  mountain  range. 

As  there  is  no  corporeal  world  without  a  spiritual  soul 
(or  no  resurrection-ashes  without  a  phoenix),  so  there  is 
no  soul  or  spiritual  world  without  God  ;  just  as  in  the 
same  way  there  is  no  fate  without  a  Providence 

The  purest  distinction  of  man  from  the  lower  animals 
is  neither  reflection  nor  morality ;  for  sparks  at  least  of 
these  stars  shine  in  the  ranks  of  the  brute  creation  ;  but 
religion,  which  is  neither  merely  opinion  nor  disposition, 
but  the  heart  of  the  inner  man,  and  therefore  the  ground- 
work of  the  rest.  In  the  middle  ages,  so  dark  for  other 
knowledge,  religion,  like  the  sky  at  night,  hung  nearer  to 
the  earth  and  extended  brightly  over  it ;  whereas,  to  us,  God 
like  the  sun  in  the  day-time,  seems  only  like  the  key-stone 
,pf  the  arch  of  heaven.  The  old  chronicler  introduces 
bloody  rain — monsters — fights  of  birds — children's  ganieb 
—  flights  of  locusts — yes,  even  sudden  deaths — among  the 


130  JEAN  PAUL   FRIEDRTCH  RICHTER.         (FRAG.  H. 

great  events  of  the  world,  as  important  signs,  as  the  smoke 
clouds  of  an  impending  war ;  and  war,  a  still  more  impor- 
tant sign,  had,  as  a  judgment  upon  sin,  its  heavenly  as 
well  as  its  earthly  origin.  At  the  same  time  this  paral- 
lelism, or  rather  predetermined  harmony  between  earth  and 
heaven,  was  at  least  more  consistent  than  the  new  physical 
influence  which  allows  not  the  day  watch  of  one  man  but 
the  thousand-yeared  watch  of  the  history  of  the  world  to 
be  fixed  by  a  God,  resembling  a  theatrical  one,  only  that 
he  is  not  a  mock  sun,  but  a  real  sun ;  as  if  the  difference 
between  the  earthly  and  the  heavenly  rested  only  on 
degrees  of  greatness ;  and  as  if  the  admission  or  exclusion 
of  the  Infinite  did  not  equally  apply  to  the  whole  of  the 
finite  universe  and  to  its  smallest  part ! 

He  who  possesses  religion  finds  a  Providence  not  more 
truly  in  the  history  of  the  world  than  in  his  own  family 
history :  the  rainbow,  which  hangs  a  glittering  circle  in 
the  heights  of  heaven,  is  also  formed  by  the  same  sun  in 
the  dew-drop  of  a  lowly  flower.  The  diffident  modesty  of 
present  individuals  who  prefer  leaving  the  care  of  them- 
selves to  blind  fate,  rather  than  to  watchful  Providence, 
testifies  less  to  unbelief  and  self-depreciation  than  to  the 
consciousness  of  not  believing  and  acting  piously. 

Herder  proves  that  all  nations  have  received  writing 
and  their  earliest  forms  of  civilisation  from  the  teachinge 
of  religion ;  but  does  he  not  thereby  prove  something 
further  ? — namely,  this  :  That  in  nations  and  consequently 
in  men,  the  ideal  is  older  than  the  real  ? — that  so  the  child 
is  nearer  the  highest  than  the  lowest,  for  that  lies  in  him  ; 
and  that  we  reckon  time  by  the  stars  and  the  sun  earlier 
than  by  the  town  clock ;  and  that  the  Godhead,  as  once 
in  paradise,  so  now  in  the  desert,  impresses  His  image  on 
man  before  he  can  discolour  it,  and  so  afterwards  he  can 
never  lose  or  be  without  it  ?  Every  thing  holy  is  before 
what  is  unholy ;  guilt  presupposes  innocence,  not  the 
reverse  ;  angels,  but  not  fallen  ones,  were  created.  Hence 
man  does  not  properly  rise  to  the  highest,  but  first  sinks 
gradually  down  from  it,  and  then  afterwards  rises  again : 
a  child  can  never  be  considered  too  innocent  and  good.  It 
is  thus  that  the  Infinite  Being  appears  to  nations  and  in- 
dividuals earlier  than  the  finite,  yea  than  infinite  space' 


CHAP.  IV.]  LEVANA.  131 

as  the  almighty  power  of  young  nature  produced,  according 
to  Schelling,  the  fixed  suns  earlier  than  the  worlds  which 
roll  round  them.  If  a  whole  system  of  religious  meta- 
physics did  not  dreamingly  sleep  within  the  child,  how 
oould  the  mental  contemplation  of  infinity,  God,  eternity, 
holiness,  &c.,  be  imparted  to  him,  since  we  cannot  com- 
municate it  by  outward  means,  and  indeed  have  nothing 
for  that  purpose  but  words,  which  have  not  the  power  of 
creating,  but  only  of  arousing  ?  The  dying  and  the  faint- 
ing hear  inward  music  which  no  outward  object  gives ; 
and  ideas  are  such  inward  tones.*  In  general  even  the 
questions,  that  is  the  objects  of  proper  metaphysics,  are 
among  children,  as  among  the  uneducated  classes,  much 
more  active  and  common  than  one  supposes,  only  under 
different  names ;  and  the  four-year  old  child  will  ask,  what 
lies  behind  the  curtains  of  the  hidden  world,  whence  is  the 
origin  of  God?  &c.  For  instance,  in  children  talking 
together,  the  author  heard  his  five-year  old  boy  philosophise 
and  say,  "  God  has  made  every  thing,  so  if  one  off'ers  Him 
any  thing  He  has  made  it;"  whereupon  his  four-year  old 
sister  said,  "  He  makes  nothing;"  and  he  answered,  "Ho 
makes  nothing,  because  He  has  made  it."  Again ;  the 
seven-year  old  sister  maintained,  if  the  soul  in  the  head 
had  another  set  of  arms,  legs  and  a  head,  another  soul 
must  dwell  in  that,  and  this  again  would  have  a  head,  and 
80  on  for  ever.f 

If  Kousseau  give  up  God,  and  consequently  religion,  as 
the  late  inheritance  of  a  matured  age,  he  can,  except  in 
the  case  of  great  souls,  expect  no  more  religious  inspiration 
and  love  than  a  Parisian  father,  who,  after  the  fashion  of 
some  nations,  never  sees  his  son  till  he  no  longer  needs  a 
father,  can  expect  filial  affection.|     When,  indeed,  could 

•  So  the  fear  of  phosts,  this  unceasina;  droad,  which  without  any 
(mtwiird  cause — by  tlmt  only  corporeal  fear  ia  produced — obtains  the 
mastery,  and  makes  men  stiff  and  cold. 

t  While  writintf  thi«j,  the  above-mentioned  four,  now  six-year  old 
3hild  said,  '*  Counting  has  a  one  und  begins,  and  what  begins  must  also 
leave  off."  At  hist  slie  showed  me  a  stick  and  asked — *'  Does  it  not  leave 
off  on  all  sides?" 

4  At  least  Mercier  says  that  the  fashionable  Parisians,  even  the 
women,  do  not  see  their  children,  who  are  brought  up  in  tbe  country 
until  they  are  folly  growa. 

K  2 


132  JEAN   PAUL    FRIEDEICH   RICHTER.        |FEAG.  II. 

the  Most  Holy  take  deeper  root  than  in  the  m  Dst  holy  age 
of  innocence,  or  that  which  shall  have  eternal  influence, 
than  in  the  age  which  never  forgets  ?  Not  the  clouds  of 
the  fore  or  afternoon,  but  the  overcast  or  blue  sky  of  the 
morning,  decides  upon  the  fairness  of  the  day. 

But  as  the  first  rule  to  be  observed  by  any  one  who  will 
give  something  is,  that  he  must  himself  have  it ;  so  it  is 
true,  that  no  one  can  teach  religion  who  has  it  not  : 
mature  hypocrisy,  or  lip -religion,  can  beget  nothing  but 
immature ;  such  a  mock-sun  can  neither  warm  nor  give 
light,  and  an  acoustic  deception  returns  every  optic  one. 
He  who  has  no  God  in  heaven  and  in  his  own  heart  can, 
without  immorality,  believe  himself  bound  by  no  morality 
( though  perhaps  for  the  sake  of  utility)  to  implant  in  his 
children  a  nothing  which  he  has  already  torn  from  himself 
and  which  he  afterwards  intends  to  eradicate  from  them. 
But,  properly,  neither  belief  in  the  morality  of  a  religious 
lie,  nor  in  its  political  advantages,  sows  deceit  in  the 
trusting  open  heart  of  childhood;  that  is  only  done  by 
the  selfish  weakness  which  willingly  makes  terms  at  once 
with  God  and  the  devil ;  that  argumentum  a  tuto  *  (a  keeping 
open  of  a  back-door  into  heaven,  worthy,  but  for  its  wound- 
ing of  reason  and  morality,  of  a  very  opposite  name)  does 
not  rank,  thank  God !  among  the  sins  of  our  age. 

The  younger  a  child  is  the  less  let  him  hear  the  Un- 
speakable named,  who  only  by  a  word  becomes  to  him  the 
speakable  :  but  let  him  behold  His  symbols.  The  sublime 
is  the  temple  step  of  religion,  as  the  stars  are  of  immeasur- 
able space.  When  what  is  mighty  appears  in  nature — 
a  storm,  thunder,  the  starry  firmament,  death — then  utter 
the  word  God  before  the  child.  A  great  misfortune,  a 
great  blessing,  a  great  crime,  a  noble  action,  are  building 
sites  for  a  child's  church. 

Show  every  where  to  the  child,  as  well  as  on  the  borders 
of  the  holy  land  of  religion,  devotional  and  holy  sentiments ; 
these  pass  over  and  at  last  unveil  for  him  the  object ;  just 
as  if  you  are  alarmed  he  is  so  too,  without  knowing  why. 
Newton,  who  uncovered  his  head  when  the  Greatest  Name 
was  uttered,  would  have  been,  without  saying  a  word,  a 
teacher  of  religion  to  children.  Not  with  them,  but  only 
*  The  Safety  and  Exigency  Creed. 


CHAP.  IV.]  LEVANA.  133 

before  them,  should  you  pray  your  own  prayers,  that  is, 
think  aloud  of  God  ;  but  their  own  you  should  pray  with 
them.  A  stated  exaltation  and  emotion  is  a  desecrated  one. 
The  prayers  of  children  are  empty  and  cold,  and  are  in 
fact  only  remains  of  the  Jewish-Christian  belief  in 
sacrifices  which  will  reconcile  and  win  the  favour  of  God 
by  means  of  innocent  beings,  not  of  innocence ;  and  the 
child  secretly  regards  the  God  whom  you  give  him  by  word 
of  mouth  as  the  Kamtschatkadale  and  every  savage 
does  his.  A  grace  before  meat  must  make  every  child 
deceitful.  As  he  grows  older  let  a  day  of  prayer,  or  of 
any  religious  observances,  become  more  rare,  but  on 
that  account  more  solemn ;  what  the  first  afiecting  Lord's 
Supper  is  to  the  child,  that  let  every  hour  be  in  which  you 
consecrate  his  heart  to  religion.  Let  children  go  to 
church  but  rarely,  for  you  might  as  well  take  them  to  hear 
an  oratorio  of  Klopstock  or  of  Handel,  as  that  of  the 
church ;  but  when  you  do  take  them,  impress  on  them 
the  value  of  a  sympathy  with  the  devotional  sentiments  of 
their  parents.     Indeed,  I  would  rather — since  as  yet  there  I      y/ ^ 

is  no  special  public  worship  of  God  and  no  special  preachers       J, 

for  children — you  should  lead  them  on  the  great  days 
of  the  seasons,  or  of  human  life,  merely  into  the  empty 
temple,  and  show  them  the  holy  place  of  their  elders.  If  you 
add  to  that,  twilight,  night,  the  organ,  singing,  a  father's 
preaching,  you  will  at  least  leave  behind  on  the  young 
heart  more  religious  consecration  by  that  one  church-going 
than  you  could  on  an  old  one  by  a  whole  year  of  church- 
attending.  After  these  considerations  it  makes  one's  heart 
ache  to  think  of  that  already  nearly  abandoned  custom, 
which  some  however  kindly  wish  back,*  I  mean  that  of 
setting  the  children  and  young  people  to  take  down  the 
sermon,  at  least  an  outline  of  it,  in  church  and  afterwards 
to  write  it  out  fully  at  home  or  at  school.  Although  this 
nearly  borders  on  jest,  we  will  ask  in  earnest,  whether  this 
must  not  convert  the  religious  sincerity  of  fellow-feeling 
into  a  mere  anatomy  and  skeleton,  and  draw  down  what 
is  holy  and  the  aspiration  of  the  heart  into  a  means  of 
exercising  the  understanding,  and  hold  every  emotion  at  a 

*  Professor  Petri  in  the  new  "Bibliothek   fiir  Fadagogik,"  &p., 
July,  1811,  who  appeals  to  Beinhard'a  Youttiful  example  tiiereauend 


Vh. 


134  JEAN    PAUL   FEiEDKICH   RICHTEE.       [fRAG.  U. 

distance  becanse  feeling  might  hinder  writing  "^  It  were, 
|!erhaps,  something  about  as  good  if  a  young  woman  made 
u  short  pragmatic  abstract  of  her  lover's  declaration  of 
love ;  or  a  soldier,  of  the  fiery  speech  of  his  leader  befoi  e 
oattle ;  or  an  evangelist,  a  neat  exposition  of  Christ's 
sermon  on  the  mount  with  all  its  subdivisions.  When 
teachers  thus  convert  all  the  highest  ends  into  new  means 
and  ways,  that  is  to  say  backways,  do  they  not  spiritually 
use  spiritual  things,  as  the  modern  Eomans  really  do 
triumphal  arches  and  temples  of  Jupiter,  which  they 
degrade  into  wash-houses  ? 

For  the  poor  children  of  the  people,  whose  parents  are 
still  pupils  of  the  Sunday,  and  for  whom,  as  a  set-ofFto  the 
deep  desert  of  the  week,  a  raising  hand  must  not  fail  to 
lift  them  out  of  their  low  cloudy  heaven,  is  a  public 
church  service  more  necessary  than  for  the  children  of  the 
upper  classes.  The  church  walls,  the  pulpit,  the  organ, 
are  to  them  the  symbols  of  the  Divine ;  and  as  a  symbol 
it  is  indifierent  whether  it  be  the  village  church  or  the 
temple  of  nature.  And  do  we  ourselves  know  where,  or  if 
ever,  the  Unsearchable  can  terminate  the  ascending  scale 
of  His  symbols  ?  Does  not  the  higher  spirit  require  again 
a  higher  symbol  ? 

Let  the  eye  of  the  pupil,  even  where  he  only  seep  outer 
walls  and  forms,  yet  every  where  gaze  into  the  Holy  of 
Holies  of  religion,  which  the  church-goer  must  bring 
with  him  into  the  church  as  the  temple- court  of  the 
heart.  Let  every  foreign  exercise  of  religion,  and  every 
outward  preparation  for  it,  be  as  holy  to  him  as  his  own. 
Let  the  Protestant  child  h.>ld  the  Catholic  saints'  images 
by  the  road-side  to  be  as  worthy  of  reverence  as  the 
ancient  oak-forests  of  his  forefathers;  let  him  receive 
different  religions  as  lovingly  as  different  languages,  in 
.jarhich  but  one  spirit  of  humanity  is  expressed.  Every 
genius  is  all-powerful  in  his  own  language,  every  heart 
in  its  own  religion. 

But  let  not  fear  create  the  God  of  childhood  :  fear  was 
itself  created  by  a  wicked  spirit ;  shall  the  devil  become 
the  grandfather  of  God  ? 

He  who  seeks  something  higher  in  its  own  nature,  not 
merely  in  degree,  than  what  life  can  give  or  take  away. 


OHAP.  IV. J  LEVANA,  135 

that  man  has  religion,  though  he  only  believe  in  infinity, 
not  in  the  Infinite,  only  in  eternity,  without  an  Eternal ; 
as  if,  in  opposition  to  other  artists,  he  did  not  paint  the 
6un  with  a  human  countenance,  but  rounded  off  this  to 
resemble  the  former.  For  he  who  regards  all  life  as  holy 
and  wonderful,  whether  it  dwell  in  animals,  or,  still 
lower,  in  plants ;  he  who,  like  Spinoza,  by  means  of  his 
noble  soul  floats  and  rests  less  upon  steps  and  heights 
than  upon  wings,  whence  the  surrounding  universe — the 
stationary  and  that  moving  by  law — changes  into  one 
immense  Light,  Life  and  Being,  and  surrounds  him,  so 
that  he  feels  absorbed  in  the  great  light  and  wishes  to  be 
nothing  but  a  ray  in  the  immeasurable  splendour  ;  such  a 
man  has,  and  consequently  imparts,  religion ;  since  the 
highest  ever  reflects  and  paints  the  highest,  even  though 
formless,  behind  the  eye. 

I'rue  unbelief  relates  to  no  individual  propositions,  or 
counter-propositions,  but  to  blindness  towards  the  whole. 
Excite  in  the  child  the  all-powerful  perception  of  the 
whole,  in  opposition  to  the  selfish  perception  of  the  parts, 
and  then  you  raise  the  man  above  the  world,  the  eternal 
above  the  transitory.  Place  in  the  child's  hand  our 
religious  book;  but  do  not  give  the  explanation  after, 
but  before  the  reading,  so  that  the  strange  form  may 
enter  the  young  soul  as  something  entire.  Why  should 
misunderstanding  be  the  precursor  of  understanding  ? 
Without  wonder  there  is  no  faith ;  and  the  belief  in  the 
marvellous  is  itself  an  inward  faith.  You  must  impart  a 
Bun-beam  of  its  origin  to  every  thing  great  which  comes 
before  you, — to  genius,  to  love,  to  every  power;  only 
things  weak  and  curved  consist  of  steps,  stairs  and 
torture-ladders;  the  true  ladder  of  heaven  has  no  steps. 
At  least  two  miracles,  or  revelations,  remain  for  you 
uncontested  in  this  age  which  deadens  sound  with  un- 
reverberating  materials;  they  resemble  an  Old  and  a  New 
Testament,  and  are  these — the  birth  of  finite  being,  and 
the  birth  of  life  within  the  hard  wood  of  matter.  For  in 
one  inexplicable  thing  every  other  is  involved,  and  one 
miracle  annihilates  the  whole  philosophy.  Consequently, 
you  do  not  act  the  part  of  a  hypocrite  when  you  permit 
the  child  to  draw  any  thing  out  of  the  book  of  religion,  or 


136  JEAN    PAUL   FRIEDKICH   RICHTER.       [fRAG.  II. 

the  seciet  book  of  nature,  which  you  cannot  explain. 
Living  religion  grows  not  by  the  doctrines,  but  by  the 
narratives,  of  the  Bible  *  the  best  Christian  religious 
doctrine  is  the  life  of  Christ;  and,  after  that,  the  suffer- 
ings and  deaths  of  his  followers,  even  those  not  related  in 
Holy  Writ. 

In  the  fair  spring  of  the  religious  admission  of  the  child 
among  his  elders,  an  important  one,  since  then  first  he 
comes  publicly  before  the  altar  and  acts  with  all  the  rights 
of  an  independent  being;  in  this  never-recurring  time 
when  the  dawn  of  life  suddenly  breaks  into  the  morning 
red,  and  thereby  announces  the  newness  of  love  and  of 
nature;  there  is  no  better  priest  to  lead  and  accompany 
the  young  soul  with  dancing  and  great  joy  to  the  high 
altar  of  religion,  than  the  poet  who  annihilates  a  mortal 
world  to  build  on  it  an  immortal ;  so  that  our  life  on  earth 
may  resemble  those  polar  lands  which,  so  void  of  animals 
and  flowers,  so  cold  and  colourless,  yet,  after  sunless  days, 
display  rich  nights  in  which  heaven  pours  down  its  gifts 
upon  the  earth,  and  where  the  northern  or  polar  lights  fill 
the  whole  blue  with  fire-colours,  jewels,  thunder,  splendid 
tropical  storms,  and  remind  the  inhabitants  of  the  cold 
earth  of  that  which  lives  above  them. 


(    137    ) 


THIKD  FRAGMENT. 

Chap.  I.  Digression  upon  the  beginning  of  Man  and  of  Education. 
§  39—42.  Chap.  II.  Joyousness  of  Children,  §  43—45.  Chap.  Ill 
Their  Games,  §  4(3—54.  Chap.  IV.  Their  Dances,  §  55—57 
Chap.  V.  Music,  §  58—60.  Chap.  VI.  Commanding,  Forbidding, 
§  61—63.  Chap.  VII.  Punishments,  §  64,  65.  Chap.  VIII.  Pas- 
sionate Crying  of  Children,  §  66—70.  Chap.  IX.  On  the  Trust- 
fulness of  Children,  §  71,  72. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE   BEGINNING    OF   EDUCATION. 
§39. 

When  does  Education  begin  its  work?  ,  With  the  first 
breath  of  the  child  but  no  sooner.  The  Light  of  the 
Soul,  which  we  call  Life,  issuing  from  I  know  not  what 
sunny  cloud,  strikes  upon  the  bodily  world  and  moulds 
the  rough  mass  into  its  dwelling  place,  which  glows  on 
until  Death,  by  the  nearness  of  another  world,  allures  it 
still  further  on.  In  this  primitive  moment — for  from  it 
the  pulse  reckons  its  first  beat,  even  though  time  be  else- 
where already — is  the  invisible  beam  of  individual  exist- 
ence broken  into  the  coloured  spectrum  of  his  bodily  appear- 
ance: the  dispositions,  the  sex,  yes,  even  the  resemblance 
to  the  father's  and  mother's  countenances  are  distinguished 
by  yet  unseen  lines.  For  the  unity  of  the  organism, 
of  this  state  within  the  world,  tnat  is,  the  emliodied 
system  of  laws,  cannot  form  itself  piece-meal  like  the  in- 
dividual parts  which  it  governs :  for  example,  the  form-» 
ing  influence,  which  moulds  the  transparent  child's  face 
like  its  father's  or  its  grandfather's,  cannot  lie  in  the 
pine-months'  fancies  of  the  mother,  but  must  exist  in 
^jj^  child  itself. 


138  JEAN   PAUL  FRIEDRICH   KICHTEK.      [fKAG.  HI. 

The  two  life- chains  of  the  parents  are  somewhat 
different ;  especially  the  last  link,  from  which  the  spark 
of  the  new  man  issued  in  order  to  animate  the  physical 
clod  of  earth  into  an  Adam.  When  one  considers  how 
little  has  yet  been  done  for  the  races  of  the  coming  world 
(except  in  the  case  of  horses,  sheep  and  canary  birds)  not 
even  observations,  to  say  nothing  of  institutions,  merely 
for  a  cradle  rather  than  for  the  child  in  the  cradle  ; — how 
the  connexions  of  the  sexes,  of  years,  of  months,  of  hours, 
are  so  lawlessly  and  carelessly  forgotten  and  injured 
when  the  foundation  stones  of  centuries  are  laid ; — how 
here  the  giddy,  sensual  man  requires  more  laws  than  the 
unchanging  beast  which  moves  straight  on  in  the  leading 
strings  of  instinct  and  of  health,  and  when  one  considers 
how  the  divergence — growing  by  means  of  culture  wider 
and  wider — from  savages  and  aborigines,  who  still  re- 
tained the  advantages  of  beasts,  has  doubled  lawlessness 
and  ignorance  of  law — and  how  the  world  becomes  con- 
tinually more  clamorous  in  desire,  more  indiffei-ent  to 
wisdom  ;  one  must,  from  a  carelessness  for  moral  requisi- 
tions, which  contents  itself  only  with  the  bare  fulfilment 
of  the  ten  commandments  for  ruffians,  finally  come  to  the 
conclusion,  that  men  seek  to  settle  with  morality  as  with 
a  creditor.  It  is  true  that  the  noble-hearted  instructor 
Schwarz  would  maintain  that  the  Holy  Spirit  takes  cog- 
nizance of  the  future  for  sin  in  the  highest  love ;  but  he 
is  right  only  for  the  highest  first  love ;  and  only  in  the 
case  of  want  of  thought  or  knowledge.  A  physician,  for 
example,  on  the  other  hand,  has  not  this  want  of  know- 
ledge. And  may  not  a  state,  at  any  rate,  like  an  elder, 
prescribe  for  all,  with  its  cold  ever-during  hand,  laws 
which  a  loving  individual  would  never  have  thought 
of  making,  and  yet  is  obliged  to  obey ;  just  as  the  law- 
book, not  a  pair  of  lovers,  contemplates  divorce. 

For  the  rest  we  may  well  venture  to  complain  that 
Kature,  during  the  "twelve  holy  nights"  in  which,  as 
creatress  she  wanders  alone  with  her  youngest  creatures, 
makes  it  too  difficult  even  for  the  conscientious  not  to  steal 
and  murder  in  the  dark.  At  every  step  down  the  deep 
gloomy  ladder  of  futurity  up  which  men  and  ages  ascend, 
conscience  calls  "  Here  is  a  man,  there  perhaps  a  genius, 


CHAP.  I.]  LEVANA.  139 

the  heaven  of  his  people ;"  but  we,  like  night  wanderers, 
must  spare  the  known  and  injure  the  unknown. 

Since  parents  play  so  prominent  a  part  in  the  history  of 
the  creation  of  the  child's  body,  one  can  with  difficulty 
refrain  from  the  question,  how  much  they  contribute  to 
the  theogony  (divine  generation)  of  the  child's  spirit  ?  If 
we  must  think  of  a  dark  problem  it  is  also  permitted,  nay 
necessary,  for  us  to  think  of  some  solution.  The  mental 
dissimilarity  of  dispositions  is  a  mere  product  of  bodily 
diflferences,  since  both  mutually  presuppose  each  other.  Il 
is,  indeed,  easier  for  us  to  apprehend  diiference  in  bodies 
than  in  minds  ;  but  properly,  there  is  only  an  apparent 
diflference  of  quantity  visible  in  those,  and  only  a  real  one 
of  quality  in  these;  so,  it  is  onlj'-  minds  which  grow  or 
inure  themselves  to  anything.  If  it  will  not  be  admitted 
that  that  spark  of  distinguishing  individuality  flies  down 
from  the  stars  in  clouds  during  conception,  it  must  then, 
either,  precisely  in  the  moment  of  inducting  its  human 
covering,  cast  off  a  previous  covering  spun  from  the 
father's  or  the  mother's  life,  or  it  was,  like  thought  and 
motion,  born  of  soul.  Creation  of  spirits  is  not  more 
diflScult  to  comprehend  than  creation  of  thoughts  by 
spirits,  or  than  any  other  change.  In  both  cases, 
especially  in  the  second,  not  only  does  the  bodily  life  of 
the  parents  cradle  the  bodies  of  the  future,  but  also  their 
spiritual  life  its  spirits.  But,  then,  with  what  trembling 
should  this  balance  be  held  !  If  thou  knewest  that  every 
black  thought  of  thine,  or  every  glorious  independent  one, 
separated  itself  from  thy  soul  and  took  root  without  thee, 
and  for  half  a  century  pushed  and  bore  its  poisonous 
flowers  or  healing  roots,  oh !  how  piously  wouldest  thou 
choose  and  think ! — And  dost  thou,  then,  so  certainly  / 
know  the  reverse  ?  ^ 

§40. 

I  come  back  to  my  own  opinion  that  spiritual  education 
begins  at  birth;  for  up  to  that  period  the  mother — as 
often  afterwards  in  a  worse  sense — has  only  a  blood 
relationship,  not  a  nerve  relationship,  with  the  child 
sleeping  at  the  gates  of  the  world.  So  that  all  that  is 
false  which  has  been  said  about  an  electric  charging  chaii. 


140  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   RICHTER.  [fRAG.  III. 

to  which  the  little  invisible  is  attached,  and  by  which  he 
is  charged  with  the  streams  and  sparks  of  the  maternal 
passions  and  feelings.  Since,  according  to  the  best 
anatomists,  the  mother  does  not  nourish  the  child  with 
her  blood  directly,  but  through  media,  the  maternal 
passions  which  are  to  affect  it  through  the  blood  can 
only  work  in  two  ways,  either  by  mechanical  change,  slow 
or  quick,  or  by  chemical  change,  oxidised  or  unoxidised. 
The  embryo  soul  does  not  partake  of  the  mechanical 
change ;  because  the  mother's  blood  may  move  as  fast  in 
the  ball-room  of  love  as  in  the  servant's  hall  of  anger  ;  or 
creep  as  slowly  when  sitting  full  of  hope  before  the 
embroidery  frame,  as  of  despair  before  a  bier.  The 
chemical  change  of  the  blood  by  passion,  or  other  external 
excitement,  is  itself,  in  the  first  instance,  a  product  of  the 
mind  and  of  the  nerves  which  serve  it  either  mediately  or 
immediately.  The  excitement  of  the  nerves  gives  the 
full  beat  of  the  pulse,  but  the  converse  is  not  the  case ; 
else  the  excitement  of  a  race  would  have  as  strong  an 
effect  as  a  drink  has  upon  thirst.  How  the  oxidised  or 
unoxidised  blood  of  the  mother  can  more  affect  the  child's 
mind  than  her  own,  must  arise  from  the  influence  of  the 
blood  as  nourishment ;  and  as  the  blood,  before  it  is 
capable  of  affording  nourishment  must  be  assimilated  by 
the  little  foreign  body,  it  can  possess  no  influence  dif- 
ferent from  that  of  every  other  nourishment:  and,  in 
nourishing,  as  little  propagates  its  differences  as  does  the 
blood  of  sheep  or  of  lions.  The  objections  made  by  nurses 
go  far  in  justification  of  this. 

The  best  proof  of  this  physiological  chain  of  argument 
is  its  superfluousness,  for  experience  demonstrates  it. 
For  were  it  true,  that  the  mother  had  a  more  spiritual 
influence  on  shiftless  naked  human  creatures  than  that 
which  nourishes  them ;  what  a  sorry  humanity  would  be 
sent  out  into  the  world  from  the  nine-months'  training 
institute,  where  on  the  mother's  side  all  the  spiritual 
and  physical  defects  of  female  nature  are  brought  together 
in  the  nine  months  and  in  the  time  of  travail :  while  on 
the  side  of  the  children  the  brain  and  the  susceptibility 
to  impressions  are  greatest,  and  thereby  every  fancy  of 
the  mother  must  develop  itself  in  the  magnifying  glass 


CHAP.  l.J  LEVANA.  141 

of  the  victim,  as  outward  form  in  the  child,  and  every 
pain  as  distortion. 

Heaven!  if  the  loathing  at  food  and  people,  the  un- 
natural longing,  the  fear,  the  weepings  and  the  feebleness 
communicated  themselves  thus  spiritually;  so  that  the 
mother's  womb  were  the  first  "  foundling  hospital "  and 
"deaf-and-dumb"  institute  for  souls,  and  effeminacy  the 
constitutional  sanatarium  for  men,  what  a  sickly,  timid, 
feeble  after-race  of  progenerated  child-bearers.  Not  a 
man  would  then  be  left— each  one  would  have  lived, 
wept,  longed  and  come  to  nothing.  But  this  is  just  as 
it  is  not:  woman  gives  men,  as  the  soft  cloud  gives 
thunder  and  hail :  the  first-born  and  natural  children,  by 
whom  the  mothers  suffer  the  most,  are  in  fact  the 
strongest:  the  children  of  the  criminals,  the  nervous, 
the  consumptive,  the  mourning  widows,  or  even  of  the 
fictitious  ones  who  live  for  the  prospect  of  divorce,  prove 
themselves  just  as  strong  in  intellect  as  the  children  of 
other  mothers  who  dance  on  from  joy  to  joy.  If  the 
mother,  spiritually  copying  herself —  impressed  herself  so 
strongly  and  spiritually  upon  the  child's  soul,  1  do  not 
know  whence  originates  the  distinctive  character  of 
children  of  the  same  mother:  each  child  must  be  a 
mental  copier  in  duplicate  of  his  brothers  and  sisters 
and  the  whole  nursery  a  mental  casting-foundry  for  the 
mother. 

As  otherwise  concems  the  body,  that  of  each  child  is 
formed  in  the  very  same  mother's  womb  and  in  an  equal 
period,  and  with  all  similarity  of  condition  on  the  part 
of  the  mother — the  male  twin  (to  take  this  case)  growing 
to  greater  strength  and  the  female  to  less.  He  wlio  takes 
physical  abortions  for  the  volcanic  outcome  of  heated 
fancies  on  the  part  of  the  pregnant  mother,  forgets  that 
fche  great  Haller  denies  the  whole  thing,  and  adduces  the 
mis-growths  of  animals  and  plants  in  respect  to  which,  to 
plants  especially,  heated  fancies  are  little  to  be  regarded : 
wbereunto  I  add — that  amongst  10,000  brooding  mothers 
each  one  of  whom  for  nine  months  might  have  been 
terrified  by  an  equal  number  of  distorted  forms,  scarcely 
one  brings  into  tiie  world  anything  that  is  not  suited  to 
the  world.     Tell  me  not  that  the  beautiful  Madonna  faces 


142  JEAN   PAUL   FP.rEDRICH   RICHTER.      [fRAG.  III. 

eeen  in  Catholic  countries  are  to  be  regarded  as  copies  of 
those  painted  in  the  churches ;  or  that  the  Greeks  hung 
beautiful  pictures  in  the  chambers  of  those  blessed,  in 
order  to  procure  living  types  from  them ;  for  I  reply,  do 
not  all  these  circumstances  indicate  antecedently  the 
productions  of  beautiful  lands  and  beautiful  men;  and 
further  does  not  the  life-long  impression  of  many  forms 
of  beauty  recoin  with  more  strength  than  that  of  nine 
months  the  humanity  current  in  the  world  ? 

At  the  same  time,  the  disbelief  that  the  nine-months' 
mother  decides  on  the  mental  and  physical  form  of  her 
child  leaves  room  for  the  true  belief  that  her  health  or 
sickness  is  repeated  in  the  little  second  being :  and  it  is 
for  this  very  reason  that  superstitious  fancies  about 
marks,  mis-births  and  similar  things  ought  to  be  so  much 
guarded  agairst;  not  because  what  is  dreaded  brings  its 
fulfilment,  but  because  it,  along  with  those  evils  which 
are  produced  by  alarm  before  a  thing  occurs  and  undue 
anxiety  after  it  has  happened,  weakens  the  body,  and 
brings  for  the  sufferer  years  of  trouble. 

§  41. 

At  last  the  child  can  say  to  the  father — Educate,  for  I 
breathe.  The  first  breath,  like  the  last,  closes  an  old  with 
a  new  world.  The  new  is,  in  this  case,  the  world  of  light 
and  colours  the  life  on  earth,  like  a  painter,  begins  with 
the  eye.  The  ear,  indeed,  preceded  it — so  that  it  is  the 
first  sense  of  the  living  as  it  is  the  last  of  the  dying — but 
then  it  belonged  to  the  realm  of  feeling ;  and  it  is  on  this 
account  that  birds  in  the  egg,  and  soft  many-punctured 
silkworms  die  from  a  loud  report.  The  first  sound  falls 
with  a  darker  chaos  on  the  closely  covered  soul  than  the 
fi.rst  beam  of  light.  So  the  morning  of  life  opens  on  the 
freed  prisoner  with  the  two  senses  imparting  knowledge 
of  distance,  like  the  morning  of  the  day  with  light  and 
song,  or  bustle.  At  the  same  time,  light  continues  to  be 
the  first  enamel  of  the  earth,  the  first  fair  word  of  life. 
The  sound  which  breaks  upon  the  slumbering  ear  can  be 
but  loud,  but  none  near  the  labouring  mother  causes  it, 
but  her  own  travail,  and  the  child ;  and  so  the  world  of 


CHAP.  I  ]  LEV  ANA.  143 

Bornid  begins  with  a  discord,  but  the  world  of  sight  with 
beauty  and  glory. 

Every  first  thing  continues  for  ever  with  the  child ;  the 
first  colour,  the  first  music,  the  first  flower  paint  the  fore- 
ground of  his  life ;  yet  we  can  prescribe  no  other  law  than 
this,  Protect  the  child  from  all  that  is  impetuous  and 
violent,  and  even  from  sweet  impressions.  Nature,  so  soft, 
defenceless  and  excitable,  may  be  distorted  by  one  error, 
and  hardened  into  a  growing  deformity.  For  this  reason 
the  crying  of  children,  if  composed  of  a  union  of  discord, 
hastiness,  imperiousness  and  passion,  ought  to  be  guarded 
against  by  all  due  means,  but  not  by  effeminacy  which 
only  increases  it. 

§42. 

If  in  the  ocean  of  a  human  soul  sections  may  be  made, 
and  degrees  of  longitude  and  latitude  ascribed  to  it,  we 
must,  in  the  case  of  a  child,  make  the  first  section  of  the 
first  three  ^ears,  during  which,  from  the  want  of  the 
power  of  speech,  he  still  lives  in  the  animal  cloister,  and 
only  approaches  us  through  the  speech-grating  of  natural 
signs.  In  this  speechless  period,  of  which  we  shall  now 
treat,  the  pupils  are  quite  given  up  to  feminine  fluency  ; 
but  how  women  ought  now  to  educate  can  only  be  seen 
later  on,  when  we  inquire  how  they  themselves  ought  to 
have  been  educated.  In  this  period  of  twilight,  in  thit 
first  moon's  quarter,  or  eighth  of  life,  let  the  light  only 
grow  of  itself,  do  not  kindle  it.  Here  the  sexes  are  un- 
separated,  neither  divided  by  the  Platonic  Aristophanes, 
nor  by  the  tailor.  The  whole  human  being  is  as  yet  a  closed 
bud  whose  blossom  is  concealed.  Like  the  eggs  of  birds, 
whether  of  song  or  of  prey,  and  like  the  new-born  young 
of  the  dove  or  of  the  vulture,  all  at  first  require  warmth, 
not  nourishment,  which  might  have  a  very  different  effect. 

And  what,  then,  is  warmth  for  the  human  chicken  ? — 
Happiness.  One  has  but  to  give  them  play  room,  by  taking 
away  what  may  be  painful,  and  their  powers  shoot  up  of 
themselves.  The  new  world  which  the  suckling  brings 
with  him,  and  the  new  one  which  he  finds  around  him, 
enfold  him  as  learning,  or  develop  themselves  as  know- 
lodge;  and  neither  world  yet  requii-es  the  ploughing  or 


144  JEAN  PAUL  FEIEDKICH  EIOHTER.      [fRAG.  HI. 

sowing  of  stranger  hands.  Even  the  artificial  gymnastics 
of  the  senses,  which  will  teach  a  year-old  child  to  see  and 
hear  and  hold,  are  not  much  more  necessary  than  the 
leading  strings  which  show  him  how  to  walk ;  and  can 
the  advantage  of  teaching  some  use  of  the  senses,  say  in 
three  months,  which  would  have  come  of  itself  in  four,  be 
a  recompense  for  neglecting  and  wearying  oneself  in  the 
first  year  and  with  the  first  child,  to  the  injury  of  after 
years  and  the  next  children,  about  something  which 
imconstrained  life  necessitates  in  savages  and  country 
people  ? 

The  excellent  Schwarz,  in  his  Treatise  on  Education, 
prompts,  by  his  proposition  of  an  early  gymnasium  for 
all  the  senses,  to  an  appendix  to  this  paragraph.  As  to 
the  material  advantage  of  these  school  classes  for  the  five 
senses,  it  is  certain  that  rich  varied  life,  by  its  unceasing 
influence,  educates  and  practises  the  senses  with  a  power 
which  does  not  require  the  poverty  of  particular  institu- 
tions for  practice,  except  you  wish  to  convert  the  whole 
child  into  one  single  sense — into  a  painter's  eye,  or  a 
musician's  ear. 

On  the  other  hand,  these  practices  have  a  formal  utility 
in  constraining  the  mind  to  perceive  the  finer  subdivisions 
of  its  sensations,  and  to  measure  the  world  more  accurately 
by  lines  than  by  yards.  In  the  mean  time,  the  inner 
world  offers  itself  to  a  finer  and  higher  school  than  the 
outward.  Especially  leave  out  all  exercises  of  the  sense 
of  taste,  for  whose  haul  gout  the  kitchen  is  the  best  school ; 
since  we  do  not  need  by  its  means  to  distinguish  between 
nourishment  and  poison,  but  rather  teach  by  its  exercise 
at  rich  tables  to  confound  the  two,  so  that  we,  unlike  the 
beasts  who  only  when  young,  from  unpractised  taste,  crop 
injurious  weeds,  when  old,  from  refined  taste,  long  for 
poison-dishes,  and  poison-goblets. 

Let  there  be  here  not  so  much  a  (?i-gression  as  a  pre- 
gression  concerning  the  order  of  development  of  the  senses. 
Schwarz,  in  his  Treatise  on  Education,  assigns  too  late  a 
birth-time,  almost  beyond  the  age  of  childhood,  for  the 
senses  of  taste  and  smell.  He  seems,  however,  to  con- 
found the  refinement  of  these  senses,  which,  no  doubt, 
takes  place  in  mature  ago,  with  their  existence  and  power, 


CHAP.  1. 1  LEVANA.  145 

which  ceriainly  flourish  in  their  greatest  strength  during 
childhood.  Every  one  may  remember  how  as  a  child,  like 
the  animals  (which  remain  stationary  on  this  first  step) 
and  like  savages,  he  imbibed  every  thing  tasty,  fruits, 
sugar,  sweet  wine,  fat,  with  a  delight  and  enjoyment 
which  weakened  with  every  year  of  the  subsequent  refine- 
ment of  the  sense ;  hence  the  so  much  lamented  love  of 
sweatmeats  in  all  children;  hence  the  experience  of  so 
many  grown-up  people,  who  have  had  the  favourite  dishes 
of  their  childhood  cooked  for  them,  that  they  did  not  like 
them.  Infants,  no  doubt,  take  bitter  medicines  without 
resistance ;  but  this  is  no  reproach  to  their  taste ;  wo 
ourselves  in  later  life  seek  a  pure  bitter  as  a  higher 
excitement,  in  bitter  beer,  water,  and  almonds.  If  a 
young  animal  eat  poisonous  plants  which  an  old  one 
avoids,  there  is  proved  by  this  less  want  of  taste  than 
superabundance  of  appetite,  that  is  hunger;  which,  in  it, 
as  easily  conquers  instinct  as,  in  us,  it  unfortunately  over- 
comes reason. 

Smell,  the  dulness  of  which  sense  speaks  as  little  in 
favour  of  mental  delicacy  as  that  of  the  eye  or  of  the  ear 
does  against  it,*  awakes  with  consciousness,  consequently, 
last  in  a  child.  We  are  less  aware  of  its  advent  because 
it  subserves  few  necessities  ;  and  because  itg  continuance, 
either,  for  instance,  in  spice  islands,  or  in  Augean-stable- 
like streets,  renders  the  consciousness  of  it  difficult. 
Children  have  little  scent-glands  for  the  persons  nearest 
them,  for  instance,  for  their  parents ;  and  thereby  dis- 
tinguish them  from  individuals  more  rarely  seen.  And 
it  is  precisely  smell  which  dies  away  the  first  of  all  the 
senses ;  although  it,  unlike  the  other  senses,  is  seldom 
worn  out  by  too  powerful  stimulants.  And  who  is  there 
who  has  not  experienced  in  himself  what  I  have  done — 
that  often  a  r.osegay  of  wild  flowers,  which  was  to  us,  as 
village  children,  a  grove  of  pleasure,  has,  in  after  years  of 
manhood  and  in  the  town,  given  us  by  its  old  perfume  an 
indescribable  transport  back  into  god-like  childhood ;  and 
how,  like  a  flower-goddess,  it  has  raised  us  into  the  first 
embracing  Aurora-clouds  of  our  first  dim  feelings  ?     But 

*  Haller  with  his  weak  eves:  Pope  and  Swift  with  unmusical 
ears. 


L 


146  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH    KICHTER.       [fRAG.  III. 

how  couM  such  a  remembrance  so  strongly  affect  us  if  our 
childish  sensibility  to  flowers  had  not  been  strong  and 
heartfelt  ?  Ascribe,  then,  to  after  life  nothing  more  than 
the  refinement  of  a  deeply  implanted  feeling. 


CHAPTEK  II. 

THE  JOYOUSNESS  OF  CHILDREN. 
§   43. 

Should  they  have  any  thing  else  ?  I  can  endure  a  melan- 
choly man,  but  not  a  melancholy  child ;  the  former,  in 
whatever  slough  he  may  sink,  can  yet  raise  his  eyes  either 
to  the  kingdom  of  reason  or  of  hope ;  but  the  little  child 
is  entirely  absorbed  and  weighed  down  by  one  black  poison- 
drop  of  the  present.  Think  of  a  child  led  to  a  scaffold ; 
think  of  Cupid  in  a  Dutch  coffin ;  or  watch  a  butterfly, 
after  its  four  wings  have  been  torn  off,  creeping  like  a 
worm,  and  you  will  feel  what  I  mean. 

But  wherefore  ?  The  first  cause  has  been  already  given  ; 
the  child,  like  the  beast,  only  knows  purest  (though 
shortest)  sorrow ;  one  which  has  no  past  and  no  future ;  one 
such  as  the  sick  man  receives  from  without,  the  dieamei 
from  himself  into  his  asthenic  brain ;  finally,  one  with  the 
consciousness  not  of  guilt  but  of  innocence.  Certainly  all 
the  sorrows  of  children  are  but  shortest  nights,  as  their 
joys  are  but  hottest  days ;  and,  indeed,  both  so  much  so 
that  in  the  later,  often  clouded  and  starless,  time  of  life, 
the  matured  man  only  longingly  remembers  his  old  chiLl- 
hood's  pleasures,  while  he  seems  altogether  to  have  for- 
gotten his  childhood's  griefs.  This  weak  remembrance  is 
strangely  contrasted  with  the  opposing  one  in  dreams  and 
fevers  in  this  respect,  that  in  the  two  last  it  is  always  the 
cruel  sorrows  of  childhood  which  return  :  the  dream,  this 
mock-sun  of  childhood — and  the  fever,  its  distorting  glass, 
— both  draw  forth  from  dark  corners  the  fears  of  defence- 


CHAP.  II.]  LEVANA.  147 

less  childhood,  which  press  and  cut  with  iron  fangs  into 
the  prostrate  soul.  The  fair  scenes  of  dreams  mostly  play 
on  an  after  stage ;  whereas  the  frightful  ones  choose  for 
theirs  the  cradle  and  the  nursery.  Moreover,  in  fever  the 
ice  hands  of  the  fear  of  ghosts,  the  striking  ones  of  teachers 
and  parents,  and  every  claw  with  which  fate  has  pressed 
'the  young  heart,  stretch  themselves  out  to  catch  the 
wandering  man.  Parents!  consider,  then,  that  every 
childhood's  Kupert,*  even  though  it  has  lain  chained  for 
tens  of  years,  yet  breaks  loose  and  gains  mastery  over  the 
man  as  soon  as  it  finds  him  on  a  sick  bed.  The  first 
fright  is  the  more  dangerous  the  sooner  it  happens;  as 
the  man  grows  older  he  is  less  and  less  easily  frightened ; 
the  little  cradle  or  bed  canopy  of  the  child  is  more  easily 
quite  darkened  than  the  starry  heaven  of  the  man. 

§  44. 

Cheerfulness,  or  joyousness,  is  the  heaven  under  which 
every  thing  but  poison  thrives.  But  let  it  not  be  con- 
founded with  enjoyments.  Every  enjoyment,  even  the 
refined  one  of  a  woi  k  of  art,  gives  man  a  selfish  mien,  and 
withdraws  him  from  sympathy ;  hence  it  is  only  a  con- 
dition of  necessity,  not  of  virtue.  On  the  contrary,  cheer- 
fulness, the  opposite  of  vexation  and  sadness,  is  at  once 
the  ground  and  flower  of  virtue  and  its  crown.  Animals 
can  enjoy,  but  only  men  can  be  cheerful.  The  holy 
father  is  at  the  same  time  called  the  blessed,  and  God  is 
the  all  blessed.  A  morose  God  is  a  contradiction,  or  the 
devil.  The  stoic  philosopher  must  unite  scorn  of  enjoy- 
ment with  the  preservation  of  cheerfulness.  The  Christian 
heaven  promises  no  pleasures,  like  the  Turkish,  but  the 
clear,  pure,  infinite  ether  of  heavenly  joy,  which  flows 
from  the  contemplation  of  the  Eternal.  The  foretaste 
of  heaven — Paradise,  to  which  the  theologians  denied 
pleasures,  but  not  cheerfulness — sheltered  innocence.  The 
cheerful  man  wins  our  eye  and  heart,  as  the  morose  man 
drives  both  away :  it  is  the  contrary  with  pleasures,  we 
turn  our  back  on  the  luxurious,  and  open  onr  heart  to  tlie 

*  Tho  name  given  in  Geimany  to  the  fictitious  being  employed  to 
frighten  children  into  ohndience. — Tr. 

L  2 


148  JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRICH  EICETER.       |'FRAG,  111. 

starving.  If  pleasure  be  a  self-consuining  rocket,  cheer- 
fulness is  a  returning  light  star,  an  object  which,  unlike 
pleasure,  is  not  worn  away  by  continuance,  but  receives 
from  it  new  birth. 

§  45. 

Now  let  us  return  to  the  dear  children.  I  do  indeed 
think,  that  they  ought  to  inhabit  their  Paradise  like  our 
first  parents,  those  true  first  children.  But  pleasures 
make  no  Paradise,  they  only  help  to  laugh  it  away.  Play, 
that  is  activity,  not  pleasures,  will  keep  children  cheerful. 
By  pleasure  I  understand  every  first  agreeable  impression, 
not  only  of  the  taste,  but  also  of  the  ear  and  the  eye :  a 
plaything  gives  in  the  first  place  pleasure  by  looking  at  it, 
and  only  afterwards  cheerfulness  by  using  it.  Pleasure  is 
an  irritating  burning  spot,  not  an  all-embracing  warmth, 
on  the  excitable  skin  of  the  child.  Further,  if  refined, 
perpetual  drunkards  and  epicures  multiply  and  extend 
their  pleasures  by  the  past  and  the  future ;  so  children, 
from  want  of  both,  can  only  have  shortest  but,  conse- 
quently, deepest  pleasures.  Their  point  of  sight,  like 
their  eye,  is  less  than  ours ;  the  burning-glass  of  pleasure 
should  not  strike  them  at  focal  distance,  but  far  ofi"  and 
gently.  In  other  words,  divide  the  great  pleasure  into 
little  merry-makings,  a  gingerbread  cake  into  gingerbread 
nuts,  a  Christmas  eve  into  a  church  year.  In  one  month 
of  nine-and-twenty  days  a  child  might  be  mentally 
destroyed,  if  one  could  make  out  of  every  day  a  first 
Cluistmas  Day.  Not  even  a  grown-up  head  could  stand 
being  crowned  every  day  by  a  new  country :  the  first 
in  Paris,  the  second  in  London,  the  third  in  Rome,  the 
fourth  in  Vienna.  But  little  enjoyments  work  like  scent 
bottles  on  the  young  souls,  and  strengthen  them  from 
action  to  action. 

Nevertheless,  this  ramification  of  pleasures  only  serves 
for  their  earliest  years :  afterwards,  in  a  reversed  way, 
wiil  a  Midsummer-feast,  a  grape- gathering,  a  Shrove-tide, 
for  which  children  have  long  to  wait,  together  with  the 
gleanings  of  a  lively  memory,  shine  all  the  more  brightly 
in  the  dull  interval. 

A  word  about  children's  love   :)f  sweetmeats,  against 


C?HAP.  II.]  LEVANA.  149 

which  Schwarz  strives  perhaps  too  eageily,  may  be  dropped 
here.  I  never  yet  knew  a  child  to  whom  sweet  savory 
things  and  pastry  did  not  seem  the  most  inimitable  cakes 
and  altar  paintings,  and  this  merely  because  a  child,  half 
animal,  half  savage,  is  all  taste.  Bees  have  at  the  same 
time  a  honey  and  a  wax  stomach ;  but  among  human 
beings,  children  have  the  first,  grown  people  the  second. 
If  Schwarz  has  always  found  love  of  eating  and  want  of 
modesty  united,  he  can  only  declare  this  of  the  age  of 
manhood ;  but  even  then  the  love  of  eating  was  only  the 
consequence  and  companion  of  deeper  sensual  pleasures, 
not  their  cause.  Certainly,  the  unbridled  sensualist  will 
alter  in  his  meats,  and  also  in  his  tastes,  as  the  lover  of 
eating  does  on  other  grounds ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  how 
can  the  pleasures  of  taste,  which  grow  weaker  as  every 
year  is  further  from  childhood,  end  in  still  lower  sen- 
sualities, especially  since  the  generality  of  souls,  in  regard 
to  love,  resemble  the  Egyptians,  among  whom  the  gods 
reigned  earlier  tlian  mortal  men  ?  The  fathers  do  not  hop, 
but  the  children  do  ;  then  leave  them  their  other  Egyptian 
flesh-pots  before  their  journeying  forth  into  the  desert. 
The  author  has  often  made  the  sugar-island  of  the  tongue, 
on  which  of  itself  no  Paphian  wood  grows,  into  a  kind  of 
palaestra  of  self-denial ;  at  the  same  time  he  relates  the 
matter  with  difl&dence,  only  as  a  question,  not  an  answer. 
For  instance,  he  gave  to  the  two-  and  three-year  old 
children  candied  marchpane  (the  most  wholesome  thing) 
with  the  command  only  to  suck  it  at  a  certain  place,  and 
only  for  so  long  a  time  as  he  permitted.  The  children 
learned  to  value  and  to  keep  a  promise.  He  also  offered 
sugar  or  honey  prizes  for  the  endurance  of  the  most  strokes 
on  the  hand  ;  but  he  did  it  seldom. 

Most  royal  children  can  shorten  our  inquiries  by  their 
decision.  For,  as  regards  pleasures,  they  have  everything 
from  toys  and  drinking-  and  eating- things  to  carriage 
seats  and  bed  cushions;  but,  as  far  as  happiness  is 
concerned,  they  are  tormented  from  their  governors  up 
through  every  member  of  their  court ;  so  that  the  kingly 
crown  is  very  early  underlined  with  a  crown  of  thorns,  or, 
to  speak  differently,  the  black  round  of  sorrow  is  made 
iiroader  in  proportion  to  their  high  rank.    For,  indeed, 


150  JEAN   PAUL   FKIEDKICH   EICHIER.       [fRAG.  HI; 

when  we  consider  how  generally  a  prince,  satiated  with 
eating  and  drinking,  is  so  educated  that  he  cannot  make  a 
step  without  tutors  and  lectures,  nor  a  skip  without  the 
dancing-master,  nor  take  a  breath  of  fresh  air  without  four 
horses,  we  must  almost  believe  that  the  ancient  heretic 
Basilides  is  now  again  right  as  regards  princes,  when  he 
declared  that  the  early  Christians  would  often  have  been 
martyrs  for  future  sins,  if  the  after-pains  were  not  added 
to  the  fore-pains  of  the  future. 

Cheerfulness — this  feeling  of  an  entirely  free  nature  and 
life,  this  self- enjoyment  of  the  inner  world,  not  of  an  out- 
ward minute  part  of  the  world — opens  the  child  to  the 
penetrating  All;  it  receives  nature,  not  loveless  and  de- 
fenceless, but  loving  and  armed,  and  lets  all  the  young 
powers  rise  like  morning  beams,  and  play  upon  the  world 
and  upon  itself;  and  it  imparts,  as  moroseness  takes  away, 
strength.  The  early  blossoms  of  gladness  are  not  corn- 
flowers among  the  seed,  but  are  themselves  little  young 
ears  of  corn.  It  is  a  beautiful  tradition  that  the  Virgin 
Mary  and  the  poet  Tasso  never  wept  as  children.* 

But  now  the  question  is  of  the  means  and  starry 
influences  which  preserve  this  cheerfulness.  If  it  merely 
resulted  from  negative  and  physical  conditions,  then,  at 
least  for  the  most  instructive  half  year  of  life,  that  is  the 
first,  all  would  be  obtained  by  a  child  who  was  bom  in 
spring.  Why  do  not  men  begin  life,  as  Oriental  nations 
do  the  year,  with  spring  ?  A  child  bom  at  this  season, 
might  an  almanac  say  without  lying,  moves  slowly  on 
from  charm  to  charm,  from  leaves  to  flowers,  from  the 
warmth  of  rooms  to  that  of  the  sky :  the  wind  is  not  yet 
his  enemy — instead  of  storms,  melodies  breathe  in  the 
branches — born  to  a  half  year's  festival  of  the  earth,  he 
must  believe  that  life  remains  so — he  sees  the  rich  earth 
only  afterwards  hidden  by  its  covering — and  the  enjoy- 
ment of  life  which  the  suckling  mother  imbibes  flows  warm 
through  the  little  heart. 

*  Pertschen's  Church  History. 


CHAP.  III.  I  LEVANA.  151 


CHAPTER  III. 

GAMES  OF  CHILDREN. 
§    46. 

That    which   produces    and    maintains    cheerfulness    is 

nothing  but  activity.     The  usual  games  of  children,  unlike 

ours,  are  only  the  expressions  of  earnest  activity,  clothed 

in  lightest  wings  :  children  have  also  a  game  (it  is  one  to 

them)   I  mean  that  of  joking,  of  unmeaning  speech,  in 

order  to   have   something   to   say  to  themselves,  and   so 

forth.     Now  if  a  German  were  to  write  a  book  about  the 

games  of  children,  which  would  at  least  be  more  useful 

than  one  about  games  of  cards,  he  would,  it  seems  to  me, 

distinctly  and  correctly  divide  them  only  into  two  classes: 

\  first,  into  games  or  exertions  of  the  receiving,  apprehending,  ^ 

\  learning  faculties ;  and,  secondly^  into  games  of  the  acting,  .^^Ai-^ 

\  forming  powers.     The  first  class  would  embrace  activity  "^^ 

'  from  without  working  inwardly,  like  the  nerves  of  sense ; 

\  the  other  activity  from  within  working  outwardly,  like 

the  nerves  of  motion.     Consequently,  if  the  author  went 

deeply  into  the  first  class,  which  he  calls  the  theoretic, — the 

second,  on  the  other  hand,  the  practical, — he  would  adduce 

games  which  are  properly  only   a  ^cl^jld^  experimental 

^^....-phj^cSj  optics,  mechanics.     Children  have  great  pleasure 

for  instance,  in  turning  or  raising  anything — putting  keys 

into  locks  and,  in  general,  one  thing  into  another — opening 

and  shutting   doors,  to  which  is   added,   moreover,   the 

dramatic  fancy  of  seeing  the  room  now  large  now  small, 

and  themselves  alone  one  moment,  in  company  the  next ; — 

watching  the  employment  of  their  parents  is  to  them  a 

*      game  of  this  kind,  as  is  also  listening  to  conversation. 

In  the  second  or  practical  division,  the  author  must  put 
all  those  games  in  which  the  child  seeks  to  relieve  himself 
of  his  mental  superabundant  activity  by  dramajicj^cies,  ^_ 
and  of  his  bodily,  by  movements.     The  examples  wiUcollIe  ^^ 
in  the  next  paragraph. 


152  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   TJCHTER.        [fRAG.  IH, 

But  T  think  so  very  scientific  a  man  would  form  a  third 
class,  already  hinted  at ;  namely,  that  in  which  the  child 
only  plays  the  game,  does  not  really  act  and  feel  it,  that  is, 
where  he  takes  and  gives  a  comfortable  form  and  tone ; 
for  instance,  looks  out  of  the  window,  lies  upon  the  grass, 
listens  to  the  nurse  and  other  children. 


§  47. 

Play  is,  in  the  first  place,  the  working  off  at  once  of  the 
overflow  of  both  mental  and  physical  powers ;  afterwards, 
when  the  school  sceptre  has  carried  off  the  mental  source 
of  all  fire,  even  till  rain  comes,  the  limbs  only  throw  off 
I  ^  the  fulness  of  life  by  running,  throwing,  carrying.  jPlay  f 
I  is  the  first  poetry  of  the  human  being.  (Eating  and 
drinking  are  his  prose ;  and  striving  to  get  the  needful 
supplies  his  first  solid  bread-study  and  labour  of  life.) 
Consequently  play  forms  all  the  powers,  without  imparting 
an  overweening  influence  to  any  one.*  If  a  teacher  would 
be  cruel  enough  to  form  a  whole  man  into  one  member,  for 
instance,  into  a  magnified  ear,  he  must  during  the  first 
years  so  mix  the  playing  cards,  by  abstracting  some,  that 
nothing  could  ever  be  obtained  but  games  of  sound.  If  he 
wished  to  be  anything  better  in  the  games  than  cruel,  he 
would  perhaps  endeavour  to  lead  his  pupil  with  gentle 
hand,  imitating  chance  which  acts  from  all  sides  and 
develops  all.  But  I  dread  that  grown-up  hairy  hand 
and  fist  which  knocks  on  the  tender  fructifying  dust  of 
childhood's  blossoms  and  shakes  a  colour  off,  first  here, 
then  there,  so  that  the  proper  many  marked  carnation  may 
be  formed.  We  often  think  to  rule  the  external  but 
broad  empire  of  chance  by  means  which  some  inner  narrow 
accident  has  thrown  together  in  ourselves. 

*  Many  children's  games  are  imitations  (but  mental,  whereas  those 
of  monkeys  are  physical),  that  is  to  say,  not  fjom  any  especial  interest 
in  the  thing,  but  merely  because  imitation  falls  in  most  readily  with 
the  mental  impulses  of  life.  Probably  the  monkey,  like  Dr.  Monro's 
nervous  patient,  only  imitates  strange  movements,  compulsorily  and, 
from  weakness. 


CHAP,  in.]  LEVANA.  153 


§48. 

We  will,  however,  step  further  into  the  play-place  of 
the  little  folks,  if  not  to  be  lawgivers,  yet  to  be  markers 
of  their  games.  During  the  first  months  of  existence  the 
child  knows  nothing  of  creative  play  or  efforts,  only  of  . 
the  passive  reception  of  impressions.  During  that  period  ^ 
of  the  most  rapm  pliysical  <;rowth  and  inpouring  of  the 
world  of  sense,  the  overwlitlmed  soul  does  not  direct  itself 
towards  those  active  games  in  which  afterwards  its  super- 
abundant powers  find  relief.  It  can  only  look,  listen, 
catch,  touch ;  so  laden,  its  little  hands  and  arms  quite  full, 
it  can  do  and  attempt  little  with  them. 

It  is  only  at  a  later  period,  when,  by  means  of  the  five 
acts  of  the  five  senses,  the  knowledge  of  the  outer  world  is 
attained,  and  one  word  after  another  gradually  liberates 
the  mind,  that  greater  freedom  produces  active  play ;  and 
that  fancy  begins  to  move,  whose  unfledged  wings  lan- 
guage first  plumes.  Only  by  words  does  the  child  obtain 
an  inner  world  opposed  to  the  outer,  by  which  he  can  set  . 
the  external  universe  in  motion.  He  has  two  kinds  of  play 
very  different  both  in  direction  and  time — first,  that  with 
playthings ;  and  second,  that  with  and  among  playmates. 


§  49. 

In  the  first  place  the  child  plays  with  things,  con- 
sequently with  himself.  A  doll  is  to  him  a  nation,  or  a 
company  of  players,  and  he  is  the  theatrical  poet  and 
director.  Every  bit  of  wood  is  a  gilded  flower  rod,  on  which 
fancy  can  bud  hundred-leaved  roses.  For  not  merely  to 
grown-up  people,  but  also  to  children,  the  plaything  itself 
becomes  indifferent  if  a  happy  imagination  alone  be  per- 
mitted to  decide ;  whether  it  be  with  regard  to  imperial 
or  laurel  crowns,  shepherds'  crooks,  or  marshals'  staves, 
the  flails  of  war  or  of  agriculture.  In  the  eyes  of  wonder- 
working fancy  every  Aaron's  rod  blossoms.  As  the  Elysian 
fields  of  the  ancients  near  Naples  were  grounded  (accord- 
ing to  Maccard)  on  nothing  more  than  a  bush  in  a  cave, 
80,  for  children,  is  every  bush  a  forest ;  and  they  possess 


154  JEAN  PAUL  FKIEDRICH  KICHTER.       [fRAG.  IH. 

that  heaven  which  Luther  in  his  table-talk  promises  the 
saints,  where  the  bugs  are  sweet-scented,  the  serpents 
playful,  the  dogs  gold-skinned,  and  Luther  a  lamb.  I 
mean  to  say,  that  in  the  heaven  of  childhood  the  father  is 
God  the  Father,  the  mother  the  Mother  of  God,  the  nurse 
a  Titaness,  the  old  servant  an  Angel  of  the  Communion, 
the  turkey  a  Cherub  of  Eden,  and  Eden  itself  is  restored. 
Do  you  not  know  that  there  is  a  time  when  fancy  is  more 
actively  creative  than  even  in  youth,  namely,  in  child- 
hood, in  which  nations  create  their  gods,  and  only  speak 
in  poetry  ? 

Never  forget  that  the  games  of  children  with  inanimate 
playthings  are  so  important,  because  for  them  there  are 
only  living  things :  (a  doll  is  as  much  a  human  being  to 
a  child  as  a  baby  is  to  a  woman ;)  and  also  because  to  them 
every  word  is  a  reality.  In  beasts  the  body  alone  plays, 
in  children  the  mind.  Life  meets  them  on  every  side ; 
they  cannot  comprehend  death,  or  any  thing  dead;  and 
therefore  the  happy  beings,  animating  every  thing,  sur- 
round themselves  only  with  life,  and  hence  it  is  they  say, 
for  instance,  "  The  lights  have  covered  themselves  up  and 
gone  to  bed — the  spring  has  dressed  itself — the  water  runs 
down  the  glass— his  house  lives  there — the  wind  dances,"  * 
: — or  of  a  watch  from  which  the  works  are  removed,  "  It  is 
not  alive." 

But  among  richer  realities  fancy  fades  and  grows  poor ; 
in  the  mean  time  every  plaything  and  play  world  is  only 
a  distaff  of  flax  from  which  the  soul  spins  a  many  coloured 
coat.  As  the  rook  in  chess  was  among  different  people, 
now  a  camel,  now  an  elephant,  a  stork,  a  boat,  a  castle ; 
BO  among  children,  one  plaything  often  acts  many  parts, 
and  every  time  it  seems  to  them,  as  manna  did  to  the 
Jews,  the  very  thing  they  desired.  The  author  remember^ 
a  little  girl  of  two  years  old  who,  after  having  long  carried 
about  an  old  doll  reduced  to  the  bare  wood,  had  at  last 
placed  in  her  arms  a  very  pretty  and  skilfully  dressed 
one — a  foster-sister  of  the  most  beautiful  in  Bertuch's 
Journal  des  Modes,  which  it  resembled  as  mu  »h  in  optio 
beauty  as  it  surpassed  it  in   size.     Soon  afterwards  the 

*  Some  girl  in  terror  at  the  raging  of  the  wind  substituted  "  dance  ^ 
euphemistically. 


CHAT,  in.]  LEVANA.  155 

child  not  only  resumed  her  former  conduct  towards  the 
wooden  sloven,  but  went  so  far  as  to  take  into  her  arms, 
in  the  place  of  child  or  doll,  a  shabby  boot-jack  of  her 
father  8,  which  she  nursed  and  rocked  to  sleep  as  lovingly 
as  the  above-mentioned  original  of  Bertuch's  pictures.  So 
much  more  readily  does  fancy  invest  an  invisible  Adam's 
rib  with  human  limbs  and  fashionable  costume  than  a 
doll  which  only  differs  in  size  from  a  lady,  and  which,  on 
its  side,  appears  to  the  imagination  at  the  next  tea-party 
so  perfect  that  it  can  be  improved  in  nothing. ,  Just  so  the 
same  little  lassie,  sitting  beside  the  author,  wrote  for  a 
long  time  with  a  pen  dipped  only  in  air  on  an  ever-white 
sheet  of  paper,  until  he  almost  fancied  it  was  a  satire  on 
himself.  Consequently  do  not  surround  your  children, 
like  princes'  children,  with  a  little  world  of  the  turner's : 
do  not  give  them  eggs  coloured  and  painted  over  with 
figures,  but  white ;  they  will  soon  from  their  own  minds 
hatch  the  coloured  feathers.  On  the  contrary,  the  older  a 
man  growb  the  more  rich  a  reality  should  appear :  the  heath 
on  which  the  youth  gleaned  at  least  the  morning-dew  of 
the  light  of  love,  grows  cold  with  the  dark  night-dew  ta 
the  half-blind  old  man,  and  at  last  man  requires  a  whole 
world,  I  mean  the  next,  in  order  only  to  live. 

§50. 

But  by  the  same  fancy  which,  like  the  sun,  paints  the 
colours  on  the  leaves  are  they  also  again  removed  from 
them.  The  same  mistress  of  the  robes  dresses,  and  also 
undresses;  consequently  there  is  for  children  no  ever- 
enduring  play  or  plaything.  Therefore  ^j?  not  let  a  play- 
thing whj^ch  has  lost  its  charm  lie  long  before  the  eye 
con8Cious~of  the  change ;  lay  it  by.  After  a  long  time 
Uhe  dismissed  favourite  will  be  received  with  honour.  The 
same  is  to  be  said  of  picture-books  ;  for  a  poetic  animation 
is  as  necessary  to  the  picture-book  as  to  the  play  drawer. 
A  few  words  about  that.  The  proper  picture-books  for 
ABC  children  do  not  consist  of  a  sequence  of  unknown 
plants  and  animals,  whose  differences  only  the  instructed 
eye  perceives,  but  of  historical  pieces  which  present  the 
actions  of  animals  or  men  taken  from  the  child's  circlo» 


156  JEAN   PAUL   FKIEDKICH   EIGHT EK.       [FRAG.  III. 

Then  this  living  gallery,  in  whose  universal  history  the 
child  can  more  clearly  paint  the  individual  being  than 
the  reader  or  author  can  in  the  all-embracing  generality  of 
poetry,  may  be  exalted  into  historic  groups  ;  for  instance 
into  a  Joseph  among  his  brethren,  selling  or  recognising 
him, — into  a  Hector's  farewell  of  wife  and  child,  and  such 
like  subjects. 

Children — those  of  one  or  two  years  old  excepted  who 
still  need  the  spur  of  colour — only  require  drawings,  not 
paintings ;  colours  resemble  the  above-mentioned  luxurious-' 
ness  of  playthings  and,  by  reality,  weaken  the  creative 
faculty.  Therefore  give  no  plaything  whose  end  is  only 
to  be  looked  at ;  but  let  every  one  be  euch  as  to  lead  to 
work.  For  instance,  a  little  complete  mine,  after  being  a 
leW hours  before  the  child's  eyes,  is  altogether  gone  over 
and  each  tiny  vein  of  ore  exhausted ;  but  a  box  of  building 
materials,  a  collection  of  detached  houses,  bridges  and 
trees,  by  their  ever-varying  location,  will  make  him  as 
rich  and  happy  as  an  heir  to  the  throne  who  makes  his 
mental  dispositions  known  by  rebuilding  his  father's 
palace  in  the  park.  Moreover,  small  pictures  are  better 
than  large  ones.  What  is  to  us  almost  invisible  is  tc 
children  only  little ;  they  are  physically  short  sighted, 
consequently  suited  to  what  is  near ;  and  with  their  short 
yard,  that  is,  with  their  little  body,  they  so  easily  finci 
giants  everywhere,  that  to  these  little  juveniles  we  should 
present  the  world  on  a  reduced  scale. 

§51. 

Before  the  new  philosophers,  who  in  education  more 
readily  give  everything  than  something,  one  grows  so 
very  much  ashamed  of  such  a  paragraph  as  this  that  one 
scarcely  knows  how  to  deck  and  sweeten  it.  I  must, 
however,  say  that  for  children  in  their  early  years,  I  know  • 
no  cheaper  and  more  lasting  plaything,  one  that  is  also 
clean  and  suited  for  both  sexes,  than\what  everyone  has 
in  the  pineal-gland,  some  in  the  bladder,  and  birds  in  the 
stomachjL-sand.  I  have  seen  children  weary  of  play  use 
it  for  hours  as  building  material,  as  hurling  machine,  as  a 
cascade,  water  for  washing,  seed,  flour,  finger-tickler,  aa 


A 


CHAP.  III. J  LEVANA.  157 

inlaid  work,  and  raised  work,  as  a  ground  for  writing  and 
painting.  It  is  to  boys  what  water  is  to  girls.  Philo- 
sophers! strew  sand  less  in  than  before  the  eyes  in  the 
birdcage  of  your  children.  Only  one  thing  has  to  be  cared 
for  with  regard  to  it,  that  they  do  not  eat  their  plaything. 

§52. 

The  second  kind  of  play  is  the  playing  of  children  with 
children.  If  men  be  made  for  men,  so  are  children  for 
children,  only  much  more  beautifully.  In  their  early 
years  children  are  to  one  another  only  the  completion  of 
their  fancy  about  one  plaything :  two  fancies,  like  two 
flames,  play  near  and  in  one  another,  yet  un-united. 
Moreover  children  alone  are  sufficiently  childlike  for 
children.  But  in  later  years  the  first  little  bond  of 
society  is  woven  of  flower- garlands  ;  playing  children  are 
little  European  savages  in  social  contract  for  the  per- 
formance of  one  drama.  On  the  play-place  they  first  issue 
from  the  speaking  and  audience  hall  into  the  true  sphere 
of  action,  and  begin  their  human  praxis.  For  parents 
and  teachers  are  ever  to  them  those  strange  heaven- 
descended  gods,  who,  according  to  the  belief  of  many 
nations,  appeared  teaching  and  helping  the  new  men  on 
the  new-born  earth  :  at  least  they  are  to  the  child  gigan- 
tic Titans ; — consequently  in  this  theocracy  and  monarchy 
free  resistance  is  forbidden  and  injurious  to  them,  obe- 
dience and  faith  serviceable  and  salutary.  Where  then 
can  the  child  show  and  mature  his  governing  power,  his 
resistance,  his  forgiveness,  his  generosity,  his  gentleness, 
in  short  every  root  and  blossom  of  society,  except  in 
freedom  among  his  equals  ?  Teach  children  by  children ! 
The  entrance  into  their  play-room  is  for  them  an  entrance 
into  the  great  world ;  and  their  mental  school  of  industry 
is  in  the  child's  play-room  and  nursery.  It  is  often  of  more 
use  to  a  boy  himself  to  administer  the  cane  than  to  receive 
it  from  his  tutor ;  and  still  more  to  have  it  inflicted  by 
one  of  his  equals  than  by  one  of  his  superiors.  If  you 
wish  to  form  a  slave  for  life,  fasten  a  boy  for  fifteen  years 
to  the  legs  and  arms  of  his  tutor,  who  is  to  be  at  once 
theatrical  director,  and  occasional  member  of  the  two^ 


158  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDKICH   KICHTER.       [Fi^AG.  III. 

personed  company.  Like  all  slaves,  the  child  will 
probably  keep  his  eye  and  heart  armed  against  his  tyrant's 
individuality ;  but,  accustomed  to  one  climate  and  sailing 
only  with  one  wind,  he  will  be  unable  in  future  to  with- 
stand the  all-sidedness  of  individualities. 

§53. 

The  teaching  and  feeding  master  of  the  little  one 
always  acts  as  if  the  proper  life  of  the  child,  as  a  hulnan 
being,  were  not  actually  begun,  but  waited  until  he 
himself  had  departed  in  order  then  to  lay  the  key-stone  of 
the  arch.  Even  the  travelling  tutor  believes  that,  so 
long  as  he  walks  beside  and  sows  seed  in  the  furrow,  the 
time  of  leaves  and  flowers  has  not  arrived.  For  man, 
needing  an  external  whole,  when  once  an  inner  one 
animates  him,  fixes  that  outer  one,  like  the  arch  of  the 
sky  and  the  approach  of  heaven  to  earth,  in  the 
distance  and  on  the  horizon,  although  from  every  hill 
which  he  successively  mounts  that  heaven  flies  away  into 
the  more  distant  blue;  and  so  man  arrives  at  old  age, 
and  at  last,  on  the  mound  of  the  grave,  heaven  rests  upon 
earth.  The  whole  of  life  is,  then,  nowhere  or  everywhere. 
Heavens !  where  a  man  is,  there  eternity,  not  time,  begins. 
Consequently  the  plays  and  actions  of  children  are  as 
serious  and  full  of  meaning  in  themselves  and  in  reference 
to  their  future,  as  ours  are  to  ours.  The  early  game 
becomes  the  earnest  of  later  years ;  although  children  in 
play  often  repeat  something  as  the  echo  of  an  earlier 
reality,  just  as  the  Neapolitans  play  cards  during  theatrical 
representations.  Moser  dictated  his  works  while  playing 
ombre  :  perhaps  his  have  been  secretly  suggested  to  many 
an  author  by  his  early  childhood's  games.  As  chess  is 
«aid  to  serve  for  instruction  in  war  and  government,  so 
the  ■'^uture  laurels  and  tree  of  knowledge  grow  in  the 
play-ground.  The  bishop  Alexander  considered  those 
children  on  whom  Athanasius  when  a  child  playfully 
bestowed  baptism,  to  have  been  really  baptized.  If,  as 
Archenholz  relates,  the  hojs  of  Winchester  School  once 
rebelled  against  their  masters,  garrisoned  the  principal 
entrance  to  the  schoolhouse,  and  provided  themselves  sa 


CHAP.  ni.J  LEVANA.  159 

well  with  arms  and  munition  that  the  high  sheriff  of  the 
county,  although  he  marched  against  them  with  150 
constables  and  80  militia  men,  was  yet  obliged  to  grant 
an  honourable  capitulation — I  see  in  this  angry  play 
nothing  further  than  the  youth  of  that  present  (even 
though  it  be  unjust)  manhood,  which  bars  rivers  and 
harbours  and  their  own  island,  'and  on  the  sea  conquers 
countries  :  so  much  does  the  foam  of  childish  play  subside 
into  true  wine  ;  and  their  fig  leaves  conceal  not  nakedness 
but  sweet  figs. 

§  54. 

If  one  were  to  make  propositions,  that  is  wishes,  one 
might  express  this :  That  for  every  child  a  circle  of  / 
games  and  real  actions  should  be  provided,  composed  of  as  )  >- 
many  different  individualities,  conditions  and  years  as  can 
possibly  be  found,  in  order  to  prepare  him,  in  the  orhia 
pictus  of  a  diminished  play-world,  for  the  larger  real  one. 
But  to  give  the  social  account  of  these  three  play  provinces 
would  require  a  book  within  the  book. 

Moreover,  I  would  propose  pleasure  and  playmasters, 
as  the  precursors  and  leaders  of  the  schoolmaster — and  also 
play-rooms,  empty  as  those  rooms  on  whose  plaster  walls 
Kaphael's  immortal  flowers  bloom — and  also  play  gardens. 
And  I  am  just  reading  that  Grabner,  in  his  travelling  v^ 
description  of  the  Netherlands,  gives  an  account  of  play- 
schools, to  which  the  Dutchman  sends  his  children  sooner 
than  to  the  schools  of  instruction.  Certainly  if  one  of  the 
two  must  fall,  it  were  better  the  former  should  continue 
in  existence. 

Yet  a  few  miscellaneous  observations.  Children  love 
no  plays  so  much  as  those  in  which  they  have  something 
to  expect,  or  to  dread :  so  early  does  the  poet,  with  his 
knot  making  and  loosing,  play  his  part  in  man.  From 
time  to  time  they,  like  deep,  unlucky  players,  ask  for  new 
cards.  But  this  changeableness  is  not  merely  that  of 
luxury,  but  also  the  consequence  of  their  rapid  growth — 
for  the  so  quickly  ripening  child  seeks  new  fruits  in  new 
countries,  as  the  aged  seeks  new  ones  in  the  old.  Perhaps 
also  it  is  the  consequence  of  that  want  of  a  future  and  a 
pa«t,  whereby  a  child  is  so  much  more  strongly  affected 


162  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDEICH   RICHTEE.     [fRAG.  III. 

CHAPTER  IV.  I 

children's  dances. 
§55. 

I  KNOW  not  whether  I  should  most  deprecate  children's 
balls,  or  most  praise  children's  dances  !  The  former — 
before  the  dancing-master — in  the  society  of  lookers-on 
and  fellow  dancers — in  the  hot  temperature  of  the  ball- 
room, and  among  its  hot  products — are,  in  the  highest 
degree,  the  front  ranks  and  leading  steps  to  the  dance  of 
death.  On  the  contrary,  children's  dances  are  what  I  will 
now  commend  more  at  large. 

As  the  first  speech  long  precedes  grammar,  so  should 
dancing  precede  and  prepare  the  way  for  the  art  of  danc- 
ing. A  father  who  has  an  old  piano,  or  fiddle,  or  flute,  oi 
an  improvising  singing  voice,  should  call  his  own  and 
neighbour's  children  together,  and  let  them  every  day  foi 
an  hour  hop  and  turn  by  his  orchestra,  in  pairs,  in  rows, 
in  circles,  very  frequently  alone,  accompanying  themselves 
with  singing,  as  their  own  grinding  organ;  and  also  in 
any  way  they  like.  In  the  child  happiness  dances  ;  in  the 
man,  at  most,  it  only  smiles  or  weeps.  The  mature  man 
can  in  dancing  only  express  the  beauty  of  the  art,  not 
himself  and  his  emotions :  love  would  thereby  comport 
itself  too  rudely,  joy  too  loudly  and  boldly,  before  the  stern 
Nemesis.  In  the  child,  body  and  soul  still  live  united  in 
their  honeymoon,  and  the  active  body  dances  after  the 
happy  soul  ;  until  afterwards  both  separate  from  bed  and 
board,  and  at  last  entirely  leave  one  another.  In  later 
times  the  light  zephyr  of  contentment  cannot  turn  the 
heavy  metal  standard  to  point  its  course. 

§56. 

Children  are  like  Ferrer's  watches  which  wind  them- 
selves up  if  you  walk  about  with  them.  As  in  the  old 
astronomy,  eleven  of  their  heaveas  are  moveable,  and  only 
one,  that  of  sleep,  stationary.  It  is  only  dancing  in  a 
circle  that  is  light  enough  for  a  (3hild ;  only  for  youth  is  a 


CHAP.  IV.]  LEV  ANA.  163 

straight  course  not  too  difficult.  As  to  the  heavenly  bodies, 
80  to  children,  do  the  motion  and  music  of  the  spheres 
belong;  whereas  the  older  body,  like  water,  takes  the 
etraight  path.  To  speak  more  plainly:  Women,  it  is 
well  known,  cannot  run,  but  only  dance ;  and  every  one 
would  more  easily  reach  by  dancing  than  by  walking  a 
posthouse,  to  which,  instead  of  a  straight  poplar  alley,  a 
lordly  row  of  trees  planted  in  the  English  fashion,  con- 
ducted. Now  children  are  diminutive  women — at  least 
boys  are,  although  girls  are  often  only  diminutive  boys. 
Dancing  is  the  easiest  of  all  movements,  because  it  needs 
the  least  space  and  is  the  moiJL varied ;  hence  joy  is  not  a 
runner  but  a  dancer:  hence  the  indolent  savage  dances, 
and  the  wearied  negro  slave  rouses  himself  by  dancing  to 
fresh  exertion :  hence  the  runner — all  other  circumstances 
being  the  same — has  more  frequently  fallen  down  dead 
than  the  dancer.  Hence  camels,  and  armies,  and  Oiiental 
labourers  continue  their  laborious  marches  for  a  longer 
time  and  with  more  ease  to  the  sound  of  music;  not 
principally  because  music  produces  cheerfulness,  that 
might  easily  be  attained  by  other  pleasures,  but  because 
music  rounds  off  the  straight  movement  into  the  circling 
dance  and  its  still  returning  rhythm ;  for  it  is  only  in  a 
circular,  not  in  a  straight  line,  that  every  thing  returns  in 
thirds.  As  an  argumentative  or  a  narrative  sequence 
(science  or  history)  prepares  us  by  every  effort  of  attention 
for  a  still  stronger,  whereas  the  zigzag  of  the  epigram 
each  moment  compels  us  to  a  new  beginning  and  fresh 
exertion;  so  physically  the  same  is  the  case  in  running 
and  walking,  in  which,  up-hill,  or  down-hill,  no  effort  is 
cause  of  its  successor,  but  the  great  follows  the  littla 
or  the  strongest  the  strongest,  as  the  case  may  be :  in 
dancing,  on  the  contrary,  without  aim  or  compulsion,  one 
movement  constantly  springs  out  of  the  other  and  renders 
cessation,  rather  than  continuance,  difficult.  All  running, 
but  no  dancing,  desires  an  end.  What  better  movement, 
then,  can  there  be  for  children  than  this  revolving  one  ? 
The  gymnastic  of  running,  going  on  stilts,  climbing,  <fec., 
steels  and  hardens  individual  forces  and  muscles,  whereas 
dancing,  on  the  contrary,  like  a  physical  poet  exercises 
and  equalises  all  the  muscles. 

x2 


164  JEAN  PAUL   FEIEDRICH  EICHTER.        [FRAG.  HI. 

§57. 

Further,  the  harmony  connected  with  it  imparts  to  the 
affections  and  the  mind  that  metrical  order  which  reveals 
the  highest,  and  regulates  the  beat  of  the  pulse,  the  step 
and  even  the  thoughts.  Music  is  the  metre  of  this  poetic 
movement,  and  is  an  invisible  dance,  as  dancing  is  a  silent 
music.  Finally,  this  also  ranks  among  the  advantages  of 
this  eye  and  heel  pleasure;  that  children  with  children, 
by  no  harder  canon  than  the  musical,  light  as  sound,  may 
be  joined  in  a  rose-bud  feast  without  thorns  or  strife. 

In  short,  dancing  cannot  come  soon  enough,  "but  the 
ilancing-master  may  mor^^asily  come  too  soon  than  too 
late."  This  last  part  appears  in  the  first  edition.  I  should, 
perhaps,  more  correctly  have  written  singing  than  dancing- 
master,  because  those  skilled  in  the  art  declare  that  the 
early  exercise  of  the  voice  is  injurious  to  it.  The  first 
edition  is  only  right  in  so  far  as  it  may  to  the  utmost 
remove  children,  brought  up  in  genteel  coquetry,  from  the 
influence  of  the  dancing-master,  who  would  reduce  all 
bodily  movements  to  rule  and  system.  On  the  other  side, 
again,  the  second  edition  is  right,  if  it  add  that  better- 
educated  children,  who  in  their  eighth  and  ninth  years, 
instead  of  vanity,  know  only  the  law  of  the  good  and  the 
beautiful,  may  join  with  less  danger  to  their  higher  self 
the  trivial  regiment  and  ruling  fiddle  of  the  dancing- 
master  in  their  early  years  when  they  can  learn  to  dance, 
as  to  walk  and  to  read,  without  coquetry.  Then  also  the 
dancing-hour  may  become  an  hour  of  freedom  and  play  to 
those  poor  persecuted  children  who  are  treated  like  goats, 
whose  sinews  are  cut  to  prevent  them  from  jumping. 


CHAPTEE  V. 

MUSIC. 

§58. 

Music,  the  only  fine  art  in  which  man  and  all  classes 
of  animals — spiders,  mice,  elephants,  fish,  amphibious 
creatures,    birds — have    a    community    of    goods,    mus^ 


CUAP.  v.]  LEV  ANA.  165 

ceaselessly  affect  the  child,  who  is  the  spiritual  man  and  the 
"brute  beast  united.  And  so  one  might  break  the  heart  of 
the  little  new  possessor  of  life  with  a  trumpet,  and  its  ear 
Nvith  shrieks  and  discord.  Therefore,  it  is  probable  that 
the  first  music,  perhaps  as  an  undying  echo  in  the  child, 
forms  the  secret  thorough  bass,  the  melodious  theme  in 
the  brain-chambers  of  a  future  master  of  sound,  which  his 
after  compositions  only  harmoniously  vary. 

Music,  rather  than  poetry,  should  be  called  "  the  happy 
art."  She  imparts  to  children  nothing  but  heaven,  for  as 
yet  they  have  not  lost  it,  and  lay  no  memories  as  mufflers 
on  the  clear  sounds.  Choose  melting  melodies,  and  soft 
strains  ;  even  with  those  you  only  excite  the  child  to  frisk 
and  dance  about.  Savages,  powerful  and  pleasure-loving 
people,  such  as  Greeks,  Russians  and  Neapolitans,  have 
their  popular  songs  set  entirely  in  minor  keys.  For 
some  years  the  child,  like  the  father,  can  weep  at  certain 
rounds ;  but  in  him  it  arises  from  overflowing  happiness, 
lor  as  yet  the  memory  does  not  place  beneath  those 
tuneful  hopes  the  reckoning  of  its  losses. 

§  59. 

Yet  among  all  the  instruments  which  sound  in  Haydn's 
child's  concerts,  that  best  serves  the  purposes  of  educa- 
tional  music   which    is    bom   with    the   performer — the 
voice.     In  the  childhood  of  nations  speaking  was  singing. 
Let  this  be  repeated  in  the  childhood  of  the  individual 
J     In  singing,  the  human  being,  harmony  and  heart  coalesce 
I     at  the  same  time  in  one  breast — whereas  instruments  seem 
[     only  to  lend  him  a  voice  : — with  what  arms  can  a  parent 
[-     more   closely  and   more   gently   draw   the  little  beings 
'     towards  him  than  with  his  spiritual  ones,  with  the  tones 
of  his  own  heart,  with  the  same  voice  which  always  speaks 
i/j  them,  but  now  transfigured  into  a  musical  ascension  ? 

Thereby  they  have  the  advantage  and  the  consciousness 
that  they  can  imitate  it  on  the  spot.  Singing  takes  the 
laoe  of  screaming,  which  the  doctors  so  much  praise 
cib  a  palaestra  for  the  lungs,  and  first  military  exercige  of 
speech.  Is  there  anything  more  beautiful  than  a  merry 
•inging  child?    And  how  unweariedlv  he  repeats   the 


166  JEAN  PAUL   FRIEDEICH   RICHTER.        j^FRAG.  HI. 

same  thing,  which  is  so  repulsive  to  the  little  soul  in  all 
other  games !  As  in  maturer  age  the  Alpine  shepherd 
and  the  chained  labourer  sing  away  their  vacancy  and 
long  hours  of  compulsory  sitting  ;  so  the  child  sings  away 
childhood,  and  sings  on,  hearing  only  himself.  For 
harmony,  like  the  innate  poetry  of  the  feelings,  says 
nothing  but  the  same  thing,  unsatiated  by  repetition, 
unwearied  by  sound. 

Let  the  father,  like  the  I'rieslander,  follow  the  proverb 
— Frisia  non  cantat — and  never  or  seldom  sing :  I  would 
wish  him  to  do  it  for  his  children,  and  the  mother  for  him 
and  them. 

§60. 

As  one  drops  asleep  by  inward  listening  to  singing,  so 
one  might,  at  least  in  a  case  where  immediate  waking  is 
necessary  (always  a  most  undesirable  thing)  effect  it  by 
music,  as  Montaigne's  father  did.  A  flute-playing  chjck 
would  be  a  good  awakener.  And  why  should  not  harmony 
be  employed  as  a  soul-curative  means  against  the  maladies 
of  children,  against  vexation,  obstinacy,  anger  ? 


CHAPTER  VI. 

COMMANDS,    PROHIBITIONS,    PUNISHMENTS,    AND  CRYING. 
§61. 

Rousseau  could  not  write  these  paragraphs ;  for  he  was  of 
a  different  opinion.  But  I  agree  with  Basedow,  and  do 
not  believe,  with  the  former,  that  the  parental  will  can 
and  ought  to  assume  the  appearance  of  a  mere  accident. 
Rewarding  and  punishing  merely  by  physical  consequences 
and  regulations,  and  in  fact  the  whole  of  Rousseau's 
system  of  education,  would  throw  away  a  grown-up  man 
for  the  sake  of  a  growing  one :  but  life  is  not  given  to 
pass  merely  from  education  again  to  education.  Rousseau 
liimself  admits  that  only  an  approach  to  his  plan  is 


CHAP.  VI.]  LEVANA.  167 

possible  ;  but  then  one  is  just  as  far  as  ever  ft-om  the  goal ; 
since  here  it  does  not  depend  on  the  failure  of  a  degree, 
but  of  a  species.  Fortunately  this  erroneous  course  is 
closed  against  the  child's  mind. 

How,  then,  would  the  child  attain  the  after-feeling  of 
necessity  without  the  fore-feeling  of  freedom  which  he 
must  see  as  strong  in  others,  or  in  his  equals,  as  in 
himself?  Much  more  must  the  child — proceeding  from 
himself — regard  all  things,  even  dead  matter,  as  free,  and 
be  exasperated  with  every  opposition,  as  though  it  were 
intentional.  The  deeper  the  chain  of  souls  hangs  down 
the  broader  does  the  free  ocean  flow  around.  The  dog  bites 
the  stone — the  child  strikes  both — the  savage  sees  in  the 
storm  a  war  kindled  and  led  by  spirits.  It  is  only  to  the 
clearer  eye  that  that  dark  iron  mass  which  we  call 
necessity  stands  in  the  midst  of  the  universe  like  a  black 
sun.  Even  this  it  is  that  first  draws  the  free  spirit,  which 
begins  and  ends  in  freedom,  out  of  understanding  into 
reason,  out  of  the  finite  into  infinitude.  The  child,  then, 
who  makes  every  thing  into  an  independent  being,  con- 
sequently yourself  in  the  first  place,  finds  in  every  oc- 
curence a  premeditated  course  of  action,  and  in  every 
hindrance  an  enemy.  Do  not  we  older  ones  experience 
during  our  whole  life  the  iron  power  of  nature,  yet 
without  resigning  ourselves  calmly  and  uncomplainingly 
to  it,  when,  for  instance,  it  either  closes  it  irremediably,  as 
in  death,  or  embitters  it,  as  in  old  age  ?  And  whence  do 
physical  consequences  obtain  their  educational  reputation 
except  from  the  unchangeableness  of  nature  ?  Now  free 
will  may  appear  to  the  child  just  as  consequential  and 
immoveable !  Then  he  beholds  a  higher  than  blind  ne- 
cessity. Further,  is  there  any  necessity  which  better 
teaches  endurance  than  the  mental  one  of  a  foreign  will  ? 
Finally,  how  can  trust  in  men — that  noble  bond  of  human 
and  higher  oneness — come  to  life  in  a  child  without  some 
object,  without  a  parent's  word  on  which  he  may  confide  ? 

§62. 

The  modes,  then,  of  commanding  and  forbidding  are  all 
khat  come  under  consideration.   And  here  we  must  entreat 


168  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   KICHTER.       [fEAG.  III. 

pardon  for  the  disorderly  ranks  of  a  merely  experimental 
system  of  education. 

Take  no  pleasure  in  ordering  fc  ,  do  or  not  to  do,  but  in 
the  child's  free  action.  In  frequent  orders  the  parent's 
advantage  is  more  considered  than  the  child's. 

Let  the  child  be  irresistibly  bound  by  your  word,  but 
not  you  yourself :  you  need  not  give  any  edicta  perpetua, 
but  your  lawgiving  power  can  each  day  issue  new  de- 
re  tals  and  pastoral  letters. 

Forbid  selddmer  by  actions  than  by  words:  do  not 
snatch  the  knife  out  of  the  child's  hands,  but  let  him  lay 
it  down  himself  at  your  desire;  in  the  first  case  he 
obeys  the  pressure  of  a  foreign  power,  in  the  second  its 
guidance. 

Let  your  tables  of  the  law  be  unbroken,  and  in  raised 
character.  Kather  forbid  the  whole,  if  it  is  difficult  for 
you  to  separate  its  parts  :  for  instance — touching  the 
table  at  all,  though  you  may  only  wish  to  protect  some 
articles  upon  it. 

Let  the  child  learn  in  himself  the  right  he  demands 
from  others.  Consequently  let  the  respect  for  property 
be  decidedly  and  unsparingly  exacted  from  him.  What 
belongs  to  the  child  ?  Father  and  mother,  nothing  more  : 
every  thing  else  belongs  to  them.  But  as  every  man 
desires  a  world,  yea,  a  whole  universe,  for  his  patrimony, 
mete  out  little  to  the  little  ones  and  say — "  No  more  !  " 

The  child's  ear  readily  distinguishes  a  decided  from  an 
angry  tone  of  voice:  the  mother  easily  falls  into  the  latter 
when  she  attempts  to  imitate  the  father  in  the  former. 
His  commands  are  better  obeyed  than  hers  for  three 
reasons ;  the  first,  his  decided,  though  far  removed  from 
angry,  voice,  has  been  already  mentioned.  The  second  is, 
that  the  man,  for  the  most  part,  like  the  warrior,  says  only 
one,  and  consequently  the  same,  imperial  No;  whereas 
women  can  scarcely  say  to  a  child.  Be  quiet !  without 
colon  and  semicolon,  and  most  nec-essary  notes  of  inter-3 
rogation  and  exclamation.  Was  there  ever  in  history  an^ 
instance  of  a  woman  training  a  dog  ?  Or  could  a  generaless, 
in  commanding  her  marching  army  to  halt,  ever  express 
herself  otherwise  than  thus  :  "  All  you  people,  as  soon  as  I 
have  done  speaking,  I  command  you  all  to  stand  still  in 


CHAP.  VT.]  LEVANA.  169 

your  places ;  halt,  I  tell  you  !  "  The  third  reason  is,  that 
the  m'*^^  more  rarely  withdraws  his  refusal. 

The  best  rule  in  politics  is  said  to  be  "pas  trop 
gouvemer : "  it  is  also  tnie  in  education.  But  some 
teachers,  in  order  to  be  always  talking,  and  rather  to 
resemble  ringing  silver  than  dead-sounding  gold,  preach 
as  often  against  faults  and  in  favour  of  virtues  which 
come  with  years,  as  against  faults  and  for  virtues  which 
increase  with  age ;  why,  for  instance,  is  there  so  much 
precipitate  haste  about  learning  to  walk,  to  knit,  to  read, 
as  if  these  arts  must  not  finally  come. of  themselves?  But 
quit€  different  things  are,  for  example,  pure  enunciation, 
correct  writing,  and  holding  the  pen  and  person  properly 
while  so  engaged,  a  sense  of  order,  and  generally  those 
capabilities  which  only  grow  with  years.  Since,  un- 
fortunately, independently  of  these  things,  education  and 
instruction  require  so  many  words,  spare  using  them 
against  fading  faults,  and  direct  them  against  growing 
ones.  Frugal  speech  cultivates  and  strains  the  powers  of 
the  interpreting  child,  as  riddles  do.  Grown  people  do 
the  same  towards  one  another :  for  instance,  a  great  man 
of  my  acquaintance  says  at  first,  among  a  circle  of 
strangers,  little  more  than  hum,  hum,  and  that  very  low  ; 
but  just  as  (according  to  the  Indian  myth)  the  silent 
godhead  interrupted  his  eternity  and  creation  began,  only 
because  he  in  a  similar  way  said,  "  oum  "  *  so  this  man, 
merely  by  his  "  hum,"  gives  everyone  much  to  think  of. 
Yes,  I  know  even  a  greater  and  more  useful  one-syllable- 
ness  than  even  the  Chinese :  that  is  no-syJlableness,  or 
silence.  Young  doctors,  who  do  not  wish  to  forget  natural 
philosophy  in  their  usual  medical  sciences,  very  often 
make  use  of  it,  in  their  examinations  before  the  collegium 
laedicum,  in  reply  to  very  common  questions ;  as  Socrates 
was  silent  when  angry,  so  they  wish  by  silence  to  express 
their  indignation  at  questions  about  miserable  sciences  to 
which  they  have  always  remained  strangers. 

But  to  return  from  this  digression,  which  can  loss  be 

1  .'inked  among  the  improvements  than  among  the  additions 

to  the  second  edition — many  of  us  teachers  accompany  our 

commands  and  prohibitions  with  moral  reasons  on  theil 

♦  Gorre's  History  of  Myths. 


170  JEAN   PAUL   FEIEDRICH   RICHTEE.       [fEAG.  III. 

way  to  tlie  heart,  which  are  mere  superficiality,  for  the 
/  child's  conscience  itself  affords  their  strongest  proof :  but 
a  sequence  of  reasons  is  useful  in  connection  with 
medicinal,  gymnastic,  and  other  commands,  which  find  in 
the  child,  instead  of  an  advocate,  only  curiosity  and 
ignorance. 

Further,  we  grown-up  people  all  have  and  admit 
(though  without  deriving  any  peculiar  benefit  from  it) 
the  fault  of  considering  every  difference  of  a  child  from 
ourselves  as  a  failing,  our  scoldings  as  lessons,  childish 
errors  as  greater  than  our  own ;  and  thence  it  is  we  so 
thoughtlessly  convert  our  educational  rein  and  leading- 
strings  into  a  hanging  rope,  and  would  willingly  carve 
the  child  into  a  neat  cork  Swiss  model  of  our  Alps  (as 
Pfyfifer  does  the  lofty  mountains) ;  and  thence  it  is  also, 
since  the  like  is  not  easily  accomplished,  that  we  talk  on 
and  on,  like  the  shell  sea  trumpet  which  ceaselessly  sounds, 
and  with  our  school-chalk  draw  and  lengthen  the  broad 
stroke  before  the  beak  of  the  poor  hen,  so  that  she  may 
always  stare  down  on  the  same  line  without  being  able  to 
look  upwards. 

Even  a  grown-up  man  whom  some  one  should  follow  all 
day  long  with  moveable  pulpit  and  stool  of  confession, 
from  which  to  hurl  sermons  and  anathemas,  could  never 
attain  any  real  activity  and  moral  freedom ;  how  much 
less  then  a  weak  child,  who,  at  every  step  in  life,  must  be 
entangled  in  a  "  stop — run — be  quiet — do  that !"  It  is 
the  same  fault  as  that  filling  and  cramming  of  the  day 
with  mere  lessons ;  under  which  rain-spout  of  instruction 
princely  children  especially  stand,  as  if  to  make  up  by 
that  flow  of  teaching  for  the  future  ebb  of  learning.  And 
what  else,  in  fact,  is  this  but  unceasingly  to  sow  one  field 
full  of  seed  upon  seed  ?  A  dead  corn  granary  may  possibly 
come  out  of  it,  but  no  living  harvest  field.  Or,  in  another 
simile,  your  watch  stops  while  you  wind  it  up,  and  you 
everlastingly  wind  up  children  and  never  let  them  go. 
^/^  The  reason  why  children  dread  the  fire,  which  always 
bums,  more  than  the  knife,  which  does  not  always  cut, 
applies  to  their  different  kind  of  fear  of  father  and  of 
mother  :  he  is  the  fire,  she  the  knife.  The  difference  does 
not  lie  in  their  severity,  for  an  angry  mother  is  severity 


C?HAP.  VI.1  LEVANA.  171 

itself,  but  in  their jandbangeableness.  The  younger  the 
child  the  more  necessary  is  one-syllableness ;  yes,  even 
that  is  not  necessary ;  shake  the  head  and  let  that  be 
enough.  At  most  say,  Pst!  Later  on,  give  the  reasons 
in  a  gentle  voice,  merely  to  render  obedience  easier  by 
the  fair  tokens  of  love.  For  vehement  refusal  produces 
in  the  child  vehement  demand. 

Forbid  in  a  gentle  voice,  so  that  a  whole  gamut  of 
increased  force  may  be  open  to  you,  and  only  once.  The 
last  may  cost  labour.  Even  in  the  child  that  human 
system  of  delay  rules  which  for  every  rapid  determination 
must  have  time  for  three  words  of  command  and  three 
summonses,  together  with  some  hours  of  grace.  Do  not, 
then,  be  more  angry  than  is  fitting,  if  a  child,  for  instance, 
closes  a  forbidden  noise  with  a  so  finely  graduated  Allegro 
ma  non  troppo  and  mancando,  that  you  yourself  at  last 
cannot  accurately  distinguish  resistance  from  obedience. 
Here  there  remains  no  choice  but  either  punishment  for 
the  most  infinitely  small  disobedience,  or,  after  the  first 
obedience,  indiflference  to  the  rest :  the  latter  seems  to 
me  the  best.  But  there  is  a  more  beautiful  lingering,  the 
parental.  The  first  and  quickest  word  which  a  ftither 
gives  to  a  begging  child,  or  wife,  or  servant  is.  No ; 
thereupon  he  endeavours  to  grant  the  request,  and  says 
Yes  at  the  end  instead  of  at  the  beginning.  The  mother 
does  still  worse.  Can  you,  then,  obtain  from  yourself  no 
respite,  no  'ntorval  before  decision,  for  the  child,  or 
whoever  it  may  be,  by  merely  answering  to  every  request, 
**  Come  again,"  or  **  After  this,"  or  "  In  three  Saxon 
minutes  of  rest "  ?  ^^'omen,  I  would  only  recommend  you 
this  law  of  delay  in  order  to  be  less  frequently  in 
opposition  to  others.  Another  parental  delay,  that  of 
punishment,  is  of  use  for  children  of  the  second  five  years 
(quinquennium).  Parents  and  teachers  would  more  fre- 
quently punish  according  to  the  line  of  exact  justice  if, 
after  every  fault  in  a  child,  they  would  only  count  four- 
and-twenty,  or  their  buttons,  or  their  fingers.  They 
would  thereby  let  the  deceiving  present  round  themselves, 
as  well  as  round  the  children,  escape  ;  the  cold  still  empire 
of  clearness  would  remain  behind,  and  the  child,  as  well  as 
father  (sujtposing,  for  instance,  that  anger  would  else  have 


172  JEAN    PAUL   FEIEDIllCH    RICHTEE.       [fEAG.  Ill 

been  tl  a  occasion  for  as  well  as  the  meditim  of  the  pTinish- 
nient,  or  the  correction  also  the  repetition  of  the  fault j, 
would  learn  in  the  reflected  mutual  pain  to  regard  that  of 
the  other.  Beccaria  rightly  attaches  the  punishment,  or 
hangman,  close  to  the  heels  of  the  criminal,  because 
compassion  and  oblivion  would  else  only  act  against,  not 
in  favour  of  the  executioner ;  but  the  presupposed,  wide- 
extended  despotism  of  the  parental  law  admits  of  the 
softening  interval  of  time  before  the  spectators,  as  well  as 
before  the  child,  and  in  the  rulers  themselves.  Only  with 
regard  to  your  youngest  children  attach  the  punishment 
to  the  very  fault,  like  a  physical  effect  to  its  cause. 

§  63. 

After  unchangeable  biddings  and  forbiddings,  one  might 
also  recommend  to  the  parents  some  wishes,  whose  fulfil- 
ment  would  depend  solely  on  the  love  and  free  choice  of 
the  children,  in  order  to  exercise  them  in  freedom  and  love 
and  merit.     I  will  do  so. 

The  obedience  of  children,  in  itself  alone  without 
consideration  of  its  motive,  can  have  no  other  value  than 
that  thereby  much  is  made  easier  to  the  parents.  Or 
would  it  be  good  for  a  soul's  growth,  suppose  your  child 
always  submitted,  bent  and  broke  his  will  to  that  of  others 
^  to  yours  ?  What  a  pliable,  dislocated  human  member, 
bound  on  the  wheel  of  fortune,  would  the  child  then  be ! 
But  what  you  desire  is,  not  his  obedience,  but  his  inclina- 
tion to  it,  love,  trust,  self-denial,  the  grateful  reverence 
for  the  best  (namely  his  parents) !  And  in  so  far  you  are 
right.  But  therefore  take  care  to  command  nothing  to 
which  the  higher  motive  does  not  itself  call  and  incline 
you.  To  forbid  will  less  irritate  and  less  cause  to  err  a 
child  who  regards  everything  as  the  independent  property 
of  his  parents,  than  to  command ;  since  the  young  spirit 
already  knows  that  he  has  at  least  one  property,  himself 
and  justice.  Mothers  willingly  call  to  the  help  of  their 
biddings  and  forbiddings  the  dissipating  method,  which 
by  pleasurable  by-ways  conceals  from  the  child  the  goal 
of  authoritative  command.  But  by  this  flattering  mum- 
merj'  tiie  child  learns  no  rule  and  no  discipline,  but  before 


CHAP.  VII.]  LEVANA.  173 

his  short-sighted  eye  all  right  and  steadiness  is  con- 
verted into  a  merry  game  of  chance,  which  hardens  and 
accustoms  him  to  nothing. 

Further,  the  children,  always  only  the  receivers  of 
their  parents'  gifts,  are  themselves  sometimes  gladly  the 
hosts  of  their  hosts,  and  do  the  work  of  love  more 
cheerfully  than  that  of  necessity;  just  as  their  parents 
more  willingly  give  than  pay.  Let,  then,  the  request  be 
proffered  in  the  gentlest  tone  of  voice  (but  without  giving 
any  reasons)  and  recompensed  by  gladness  at  its  fulfil- 
ment ;  yet  let  not  its  refusal  be  punished.  Only  the  slave 
is  lashed  to  over-service ;  even  the  camel  moves  no  swifter 
before  the  whip,  only  behind  the  flute.  Children  it  has 
been  remarked,  have  a  particular  affection  for  the  station 
of  their  grand-parents;  and  how  comes  this  but  because 
they  require  and  order  little,  and  consequently  their 
grand-children  receive  it  the  more  willingly  from  them  ? 
Finally,  can  you  more  beautifully  and  soothingly  ex- 
tinguish the  memory  of  a  punishment  than,  when  it  is 
over,  making  the  child  happy  by  expressing  a  wish  for  a 
little  act  of  courtesy  to  some  one?  More  of  this  in  the 
chapter  on  the  education  of  the  affections. 


CHAPTER  Vn. 

PUNISHMENTS. 


§64. 

This  unchildlike  w^ord  will  scarcely  issue  from  my  pen  :  I 
would  rather  write  pain  or  after-smart.  Punishment 
should  only  apply  to  guilty  conscience,  and  in  theloSglti 
ning  children,  like  animals,  have  oiily  an  innocent  one. 
They,  as  the  fixed  stars  viewed  from  the  mountains, 
shoiild  never  tremble ;  and  the  earth  should  seem  to  them, 
as  it  would  do  from  a  star,  glorious  shining,  not  earthy 
black.  Or,  if  you  necessitate  them  to  sacrifice  and  pawn 
their  irrecoverable  May-time,  in  order   that   they   may 


174  JEAN    PAUL    FRIEDRICH    EICIITER.       [fRAG.  ITI. 

tliorouglily  enjoy  its  inmost  kernel  in  some  subsequent 
tempestuous  period  of  life,  do  you  advise  them  any 
thing  different  from  what  the  Indian  does,  who  buries  his 
gold  in  order  to  enjoy  it  in  the  next  world  after  he  him- 
self is  buried  ? 

Great  rewards,  says  Montesquieu,  betoken  a  falling 
state ;  the  same  is  true  of  great  punishments  in  the 
schoolhouse;  yea,  and  in  the  state  also.  Not  great  but 
unavoidable  punishments  are  mighty,  truly  almighty. 
Hence  most  police  punishments  are  usury — punishing 
with  pounds  where  pence  would  suffice — so  also  are 
torturing  cruelties,  because  no  one  dreads  the  wheel  who 
scorns  the  gallows.  There  exists  in  men  a  fearful  cruelty; 
as  compassion  can  grow  into  positive  pain,  so  the  infliction 
of  pain  for  punishment  can  grow  into  pleasure.  It  is 
strange,  but  to  be  proved  by  schoolmasters,  soldiers, 
rustics,  hunters,  overseers  of  slaves  and  murderers,  and  by 
the  French  revolution,  that  wrathful  cruelty  is  easily 
fanned  into  a  pleasurable  sensation,  to  which  screams, 
tears,  and  flowing  wounds  actually  become  a  refreshing 
spring  to  the  thirst  for  blood.  Among  the  people  the 
blows  of  fate  on  the  parents  usually  beget,  as  in  a 
stormy  sky,  retaliating  blows  on  the  children.  Common 
mothers  strike  their  own  children  the  harder  because  they 
see  strangers  do  it — or  because  they  cry  too  much — or 
because  they  are  too  silent.  Is  it  more  our  subjection 
to  jurist  Kome — which  considered  children,  as  well  as 
women,  slaves  and  those  who  were  not  Romans  as  things, 
not  men — or  more  our  reverence  for  the  domestic  sanctu- 
ary which  explains  the  indifference  with  which  the  state 
beholds  the  painful  judgments  of  parents  and  teachers, 
the  tortures  of  defenceless  innocence  ? 

§  65. 

If  the  ancient  Goths,  Greenlanders,  Quakers,  and  even 
savages,  form  tranquil  and  brave  children-souls  without 
the  cane,  round  which  ours  must  twine  like  tame  snakes, 
we  may  perceive  how  ill  we  use  the  twig  which  must 
afterwards  be  thickened  to  a  stick.  The  one  ought  to 
have  rendered  the  other  unnecessary      Even  the  smallest 


CHAP.  VII.  J  LEVANA.  175 

rod  should  only  be  used  occasionally  as  paradigma  and 
theme  of  the  future ;  afterwards  the  mere  threatening 
preaches  and  restrains.  At  the  same  time  the  reproach  of 
Goths  and  savages,  that  blows  destroy  the  courage  of  a 
boy,  proves  rather  too  much,  because  it  would  equally 
serve  against  every  useful  preventive  which  teaches  by 
pain,  for  instance,  burning  the  finger ;  and,  moreover, 
may  be  disproved,  partly  by  the  example  of  the  common 
German  soldier,  who  probably  gives  as  many  blows  in  war 
as  he  received  in  time  of  peace,  and  also,  partly,  by  that 
of  the  officers,  with  whom  sometimes  the  opposite  is  the 
case. 

A  child  who  strikes  should  be  struck,  and  best  by  the 
object  itself,  if  he  be  old  enough ;  by  the  servants,  for 
instance.  If  a  child  be  struck,  say  a  girl,  the  father  may 
be  her  curator  sexus  (guardian  of  the  sex) :  on  the  contrary, 
if  it  be  a  boy  who  struck  a  boy,  he  would  not  deserve  the 
future  man's  hat  if  he  rather  raised  his  voice  than  his  hand, 
and  took  refuge  in  his  father's  revenging  stick. 

Never  let  the  contest  of  parental  and  childish  obstinacy 
take  place  ;  the  one  in  punishing  persistency  to  obtain  its 
object,  the  other  in  enduring  refractoriness.  After  a 
certain  amount  of  exerted  authority,  leave  to  the  grieved 
child  the  victory  of  No ;  you  may  be  certain  he  will  the 
next  time  avoid  so  painful  a  one. 

Tremblingly  I  venture  to  propose  suggestive  questions, 
presupposive  of  the  matter — such,  it  is  well  known,  are 
forbidden  to  judges,  because  they  would  thereby  attach  to 
the  prisoner's  answer  what  they  had  first  derived  from  it; 
and  because,  by  this  blackening  of  forbidden  wares,  they 
would  soon  arrive  at  the  blackening  of  the  accused  thus 
urged  to  stumble.  At  the  same  time  I  would  permit  the 
educator  occasionally  to  make  use  of  such  questions.  If 
he  know  with  every  likelihood  of  truth  that  the  child,  for 
instance,  has  been  on  the  ice,  contrary  to  his  order,  he 
may,  by  the  first  question,  which  only  concerns  indifferent 
by-circumstances,  as  How  long  he  has  been  on  the  |)ond 
and  who  was  sliding  with  him,  take  away  from  him  at 
once  the  wish  and  the  attempt  to  pay  the  inquirer  with 
the  false  silver  of  a  lie ;  a  wish  and  an  attempt  to  which 
the  simple  question,  Whether  he  had  remained  in  the  house 


176  JEAN  PAUL   FRIEDEICH   RICHTER.        [fRAG.  TTI» 

would  have  afforded  room  and  temptation.  It  is  impos- 
sible that  wickedness  and  presence  of  mind  can  be  so  great 
in  a  child,  that  in  this  confusing  assault  he  will  declare 
the  seeming  omniscience  of  the  parental  inquiry  to  be  a 
lie,  by  himself  giving  a  bold  lying  denial  of  the  fact. 
Children,  like  savages,  have  a  propensity  to  lie,  which  has 
chiefly  reference  to  the  past,  and  behind  which,  as  Rous- 
seau's lie  about  the  ribbon  proves,  the  truthfulness  of  riper 
years  is  developed.  Baser  and  more  dangerous  than  lies 
about  what  is  past  are  prospective  lies,  or  those  about  the 
future,  by  which  the  child,  else  the  echo  of  the  present,  anni- 
hilating himself,  declares,  with  the  consciousness  of  doing 
so,  the  design  of  a  long  contrary  course  of  bad  action  :  the 
lie  of  the  past  steals  good  money,  the  lie  of  the  future 
coins  false.  The  carefully  moral  use  of  a  similar  leading 
question  at  least  renders  difficult  the  so  dangerous  success 
of  the  titular  truth  of  a  lie ;  for  one  successful  lie  is  the 
mother  of  lies;  and  out  of  every  wind-egg  the  devil 
hatches  his  basilisks. 

One  word  about  after-anger !  A  serious  punishment  of 
a  child  is  scarcely  so  important  as  the  quarter  of  an  hour 
immediately  succeeding,  and  the  transition  to  forgiveness. 
After  the  hour  of  storm  every  seed-word  finds  a  softened 
warm  ground  ;  fear  and  hatred  of  the  punishment,  which 
at  first  hardened  and  struggled  against  what  was  said,  are 
now  past,  and  gentle  instruction  falls  in  and  heals,  as  ho^ey 
relieves  a  sting  and  oil  cures  wounds.  During  this  hour 
one  may  speak  much,  if  the  gentlest  possible  tone  of  voice 
be  used,  and  soften  the  grief  of  others  by  showing  our  own. 
But  every  long  winter  of  after- wrath  is  poisonous ;  at 
most  an  after-grief,  not  an  after-punishment,  is  allowable. 
Mothers,  viewing  every  thing  on  the  foundation  of  love, 
and  so  treating  their  children  like  their  husbands,  fall  easily 
into  this  after-punishment,  chiefly  because  it  better  agrees 
with  their  activity,  gladly  dividing  itself  into  little  parts, 
and  because  they,  unlike  the  man,  who  sets  the  stem  round 
with  thorns,  willingly  cover  the  leaves  with  prickles.  I 
have  dearest  lady-readers,  met  the  gentlest,  mildest, 
"  Blondinas "  in  public  places,  who,  neverthelesss,  in  the 
nursery  (and  in  the  servants'  hall  too)  resembled  beautiful 
white  roses,  which  prick  as  sharply  as  the  fullest  and 


^HAP,  Vn.J  LEVANA.  177 

reddest.  Unfortunately  it  is  often  the  case  that  women, 
like  so  many  authors  (myself,  for  example)  do  not  know 
when  to  stop  and  say.  Halt !  A  word  which  I  have  hither- 
to vainly  sought  in  every  female  dictionary,  and  in  every 
female  street-quarrel.  Now  this  after-anger,  this  should- 
be-punishing  appearance  of  loving  less,  either  passes  over 
the  child,  living  only  in  the  present  and  resembling  a  beast 
which  immediately  after  the  greatest  pain  and  madness 
eats  on  peaceably,  without  being  understood  and  without 
having  any  effect ;  or,  from  the  same  sense  of  the  present, 
the  child  reconciles  himself  to  the  want  of  marks  of  affec- 
tion, and  learns  to  do  without  love :  or  his  little  heart  is 
embittered  by  the  continued  punishment  of  a  buried  fault  ; 
and  so  by  this  after-rancour  the  beautiful  affecting  pas- 
sage to  forgiveness  is  lost,  which  by  long  gradations  is 
weakened.  But  afterwards  this  after-tax  of  punishment, 
80  dear  to  women,  may  do  good  service  when  the  girl  is 
about  thirteen  years  old,  and  the  boy  fourteen  :  this  later, 
riper  age  counts  so  much  past  in  its  present  that  the  long 
regretful  seriousness  of  a  father  or  a  mother  must  move 
and  influence  a  youth  or  a  maiden  at  the  time  when  their 
hearts  thirst  for  love;  in  this  case  coldness  ripens  and 
sweetens  the  fruit,  whereas  earlier  it  only  kills  the 
blossom.  Is  there  any  thing  more  beautiful  than  a  mother 
who,  after  a  punishment,  speaks  to  her  child  with  gentle 
earnestness  and  serious  love  ?  And  yet  there  is  something 
eren  more  beautiful — a  father  who  does  the  same. 

What  is  to  be  followed  as  a  rule  of  prudence,  yea  of 
justice,  towards  grown-up  people,  should  be  much  more 
•observed  towards  children  ;  namely,  that  one  should  never 
judgingly  declare,  for  instance,  "  You  are  a  liar,"  or  even, 
•'  You  are  a  bad  boy,"  instead  of  saying,  "  You  have  told 
an  untruth,"  or  "  You  have  done  wrong."  For,  since  the 
power  to  command  yourself  implies  at  the  same  time  the 
}X)wer  of  obeying,  man  feels,  a  minute  after  his  fault,  as 
free  as  Socrates ;  and  the  branding  mark  of  his  nature,  not 
of  the  deed,  must  seem  to  him  a  blameworthy  punishment. 
To  this  must  be  added  that  every  individual's  wrong 
MCtions,  owing  to  his  inalienable  sense  of  a  moral  aim  and 
hope,  seem  to  him  only  short,  usurped  interregnums  of  the 
tlevil,  or  cometa  in  the  uniform  solar  system*    The  child, 


178  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   RICHTEE.        [FJUG.  ITT. 

consequently,  under  such  a  moral  annihilation,  feels  the 
wrong-doing  of  others  more  than  his  own ;  and  this  all 
the  more  because  in  him  want  of  reflection,  and  the 
general  warmth  of  his  feelings,  represent  the  injustice  of 
others  in  a  more  ugly  light  than  his  own. 

If  it  be  permitted  to  the  state  only  to  declare  actions, 
not  men,  dishonourable — except  in  cases  where  it  adjudges 
the  loss  of  life  with  that  of  honour,  because  loss  of  honour 
is  the  extinction  of  humanity ;  and  every  heart,  however 
degraded,  still  preserves  indestructible  the  life-germ  that 
may  grow  up  into  the  restoration  of  the  man  : — then?  is  it 
still  more  sinful,  by  the  cruel  frost  of  ignominious  punish- 
ment, to  injure  this  life-seed  in  the  child,  which  as  yet 
only  bears  unripe  and  growing  members.  You  may  give 
him  as  rewards,  coats  of  arms,  chains  and  stars  of  orders, 
and  doctors'  hats  —  or,  as  punishments,  take  all  these 
away ;  but  do  not  let  the  punishments  of  honour  be 
greater ;  that  is  to  say,  do  not  let  them  be  positive,  as  the 
dunces'  caps  and  wooden  horses  of  many  schools  are. 
Shame  is  the  cold  Orcus  of  the  inner  man;  a  spiritual 
hell,  without  redemption,  wherein  the  damned  can  become 
nothing  else  but  at  most  one  devil  more.  Therefore,  even 
Gedicken's  advice,  to  oblige  a  child  deserving  punishment 
to  write  a  theme  about  his  fault,  is  to  be  rejected  (except 
at  a  somewhat  later  period)  ;  for  what  else  can  this  raking 
up  of  the  inner  slough  produce  but  either  foul,  complete 
sinking  and  incrustation  of  the  fallen  child,  or  poisonous 
stunning  of  the  hetter  by  marsh  exhalations?  And  does 
not  the  tender  being  thus  harden  and  accustom  himself  to 
a  contradiction  between  words  and  feelings  ?  Somewhat 
similar  is  the  punishment  of  kissing  the  hand  which  has 
inflicted  chastisement.  I'he  state  and  education  do  so 
mutually  work  after  and  imitate  one  another!  I  only 
cite  as  an  example  the  disgraceful  retractation  of  an 
injury.  For,  as  no  civic  power  can  remove  the  opinion  of 
the  injurer,  the  command  to  revoke  his  words  is  only  the 
command  for  a  lie,  and  every  other  punishment  would  be 
juster  and  more  acceptable,  than  this  dictated  self-pro - 
lanation,  whereby  the  man— against  other  rules  of  justice 
—  must  show  himself  up  as  the  house-witness  of  his  own 
shame.     Only  the  judge,  not  one  of  the  parties,  can  justl;y 


CHAP.  VITI.]  LEVANA,  179 

(not  morally)  restore  honour  to  the  other;  for  else  he 
could  also  take  away  what  he  gave  back.*  Still  stranger 
is  it  that  in  the  more  refined  degrees  of  recantation 
the  defendant  loses  in  his  own  honour  what  of  another's 
he  restores  to  the  plaintiff — like  a  master  of  the  mint  who 
becomes  bankrupt.  But  back  to  our  ill-treated  child ' 
Are  not  the  wounds  which  an  honoured  warrior  scarcely 
feels  made  deep  and  burning  by  dishonour  ?  so  the  dis- 
honoured and  helpless  being  struck  by  two  blows  hangs 
between  heaven  and  earth,  scourged  both  in  body  and 
soul,  and  languishingly  desolate.  But,  ye  parents  and 
teachers,  in  a  less  degree,  but  in  the  same  way,  do  you 
inflict  inward  and  outward  torments  on  the  weak  hearts 
when — as  is  so  often  —  you  surround  with  thorns  the 
corporeal,  or  other  punishments,  by  derision  of  their 
api^earanoe,  or  by  ludicrous  names.  Never  let  the  least 
pain  be  inflicted  scoffingly,  but  seriously,  oftener  sadly,  JT' 
The  sorrow  of  the  parents  purifies  that  of  the  child.  For 
example,  if  the  ro^^al  pupil  of  Fenelon  gave  way  to  ebulli- 
tions of  passion,  this  bishop  of  Cambray — more  properly  of 
Patmos,  for  he  might  have  been  the  second  disciple  whom 
Jesus  loved — commanded  all  the  servants  to  wait  on  the 
king's  son  seriously  and  silently,  and  so  let  stillness 
preach. 


CHAPTER  Vin. 

SCRSAMiNG   AND  CRYING  OF  CHILDREN. 
§   66. 

The  beet  about  this  is  already  written,  and  the  gleanings, 
too,  along  with  it.  All  that  need  be  done  more  is — to  do 
what  ia  written ;  and  this  I  expect  from  the  women  for 
the  first  time  if  they  have  children  in  the  second  world,  or 

♦  But  here  nothing  is  said  or  ia  above  intended  against  (rather  for) 
the  old  German  fashion  which,  without  judicial  intervention,  left 
simply  to  the  two  partiea  (for  an  honour-stealer  was  forthwith  a  judge 
of  honour  before  the  end  of  the  xnatter)  the  determination  of  thei/ 
luHiours  b^  a  trial  of  stroagth. 

B  2 


178  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   EICHTER.      '  [FJiAG.  ITT. 

consequently,  under  such  a  moral  annihilation,  feels  the 
wrong-doing  of  others  more  than  his  own ;  and  this  all 
the  more  because  in  him  want  of  reflection,  and  the 
general  warmth  of  his  feelings,  represent  the  injustice  of 
others  in  a  more  ugly  light  than  his  own. 

If  it  be  permitted  to  the  state  only  to  declare  actions, 
not  men,  dishonourable — except  in  cases  where  it  adjudges 
the  loss  of  life  with  that  of  honour,  because  loss  of  honour 
is  the  extinction  of  humanity ;  and  every  heart,  however 
degraded,  still  preserves  indestructible  the  life-germ  that 
may  grow  up  into  the  restoration  of  the  man  : — then*  is  it 
still  more  sinful,  by  the  cruel  frost  of  ignominious  punish- 
ment, to  injure  this  life-seed  in  the  child,  which  as  yet 
only  bears  unripe  and  growing  members.  You  may  give 
him  as  rewards,  coats  of  arms,  chains  and  stars  of  orders, 
and  doctors'  hats  —  or,  as  punishments,  take  all  these 
away ;  but  do  not  let  the  punishments  of  honour  be 
greater ;  that  is  to  say,  do  not  let  them  be  positive,  as  the 
dunces'  caps  and  wooden  horses  of  many  schools  are. 
Shame  is  the  cold  Orcus  of  the  inner  man;  a  spiritual 
hell,  withoiit  redemption,  wherein  the  damned  can  become 
nothing  else  but  at  most  one  devil  more.  Therefore,  even 
Gedicken's  advice,  to  oblige  a  child  deserving  punishment 
to  write  a  theme  about  his  fault,  is  to  be  rejected  (except 
at  a  somewhat  later  period)  ;  for  what  else  can  this  raking 
up  of  the  inner  slough  produce  but  either  foul,  complete 
sinking  and  incrustation  of  the  fallen  child,  or  poisonous 
stunning  of  the  better  by  marsh  exhalations?  And  does 
not  the  tender  being  thus  harden  and  accustom  himself  to 
a  contradiction  between  words  and  feelings  ?  Somewhat 
similar  is  the  punishment  of  kissing  the  hand  which  has 
inflicted  chastisement.  The  state  and  education  do  so 
mutually  work  after  and  imitate  one  another!  I  only 
cite  as  an  example  the  disgraceful  retractation  of  an 
injury.  For,  as  no  civic  power  can  remove  the  opinion  of 
the  injurer,  the  command  to  revoke  his  words  is  only  the 
command  for  a  lie,  and  every  other  punishment  would  bo 
juster  and  more  acceptable,  than  this  dictated  self-pro - 
lanation,  whereby  the  man— against  other  rules  of  justice 
—  must  show  himself  up  as  the  house-witness  of  his  own 
shame.     Only  the  judge,  not  one  of  the  parties,  can  justly 


CHAP.  VITI.]  LEVANA,  179      ^ 

(not  morally)  restore  honour  to  the  other ;  for  else  he 
could  also  take  away  what  he  gave  back.*  Still  stranger 
is  it  that  in  the  more  refined  degrees  of  recantation 
the  defendant  loses  in  his  own  honour  what  of  another's 
he  restores  to  the  plaintiflf — like  a  master  of  the  mint  who 
becomes  bankrupt.  But  back  to  our  ill-treated  child ' 
Are  not  the  wounda  which  an  honoured  warrior  scarcely 
feels  made  deep  and  burning  by  dishonour  ?  so  the  dis- 
honoured and  helpless  being  struck  by  two  blows  hangs 
between  heaven  and  earth,  scourged  both  in  body  and 
soul,  and  languishingly  desolate.  But,  ye  parents  and 
teachers,  in  a  less  degree,  but  in  the  same  way,  do  you 
inflict  inward  and  outward  torments  on  the  weak  hearts 
when — as  is  so  often  —  you  surround  with  thorns  the 
corporeal,  or  other  punishments,  by  derision  of  their 
apjiearance,  or  by  ludicrous  names.  Never  let  the  least 
pain  be  inflicted  scoffingly,  but  seriously,  oftener  sadly,  ^T* 
The  sorrow  of  the  parents  purifies  that  of  the  child.  For 
example,  if  the  royal  pupil  of  Fenelon  gave  way  to  ebulli- 
tions of  passion,  this  bishop  of  Cambray — more  properly  of 
Patmos,  for  he  might  have  been  the  second  disciple  whom 
Jesus  loved — commanded  all  the  servants  to  wait  on  the 
king's  son  seriously  and  silently,  and  so  let  stillness 
preach. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

SCREAMING   AND   CRYING  OF   CHILDREN. 
§    66. 

Thb  beet  about  this  is  already  written,  and  the  gleanings, 
too,  along  with  it.  All  that  need  be  done  more  is — to  do 
what  is  written ;  and  this  I  expect  from  the  women  for 
the  first  time  if  they  have  children  in  the  second  world,  or 

♦  But  here  nothing  is  said  or  is  above  intended  against  (rather  for) 
the  old  German  fashion  which,  without  judicial  intervention,  left 
simply  to  the  two  parties  (for  an  honour-stealer  was  forthwith  a  judge 
of  honour  before  the  end  of  the  matter)  the  determination  of  thei/ 
honours  b«-  a  trial  of  stron^^th. 

H  2 


180  JEAN   PAUL  FRIEDHICH  EIGHTER.       [fRAG.  III. 

at  all  events  in  the  third.  But  now  their  weak,  five-sensed 
heart  is  driven  to  and  fro  by  the  crying  and  screaming  of 
children,  as  by  winds  and  waves ;  and,  since  they  them- 
selves often  perform  miracles  with  the  liquidising  blood  of 
St.  Januarius,  that  is,  with  tears,  it  is  natural  that  they 
should  melt  at  the  flowing  tears  of  others.  Only  to  the 
man,  for  whom  eye-water  frequently  becomes  a  petrifying 
water,  shall  a  few  mollifying  considerations  be  here  pre- 
sented ;  so  that  every  screaming  of  a  child  shall  not  make 
him  a  savage,  a  beast,  and  worse  than  a  beast. 

As  Kubens  by  one  stroke  converted  a  laughing  into  a 
crying  child,  so  nature  frequently  makes  this  stroke  in 
the  original :  a  child's  eye,  like  the  sun,  never  draws 
water  so  readily  as  in  the  hot  temperature  of  pleasure ; 
for  instance,  after  the  return  from  a  playing  party  of 
children.  Their  mirth  very  easily  passes  beyond  the  first 
extreme  verge,  which,  by  exhaustion,  leads  to  the  second. 
Moreover,  consider  that  children  have  their  hypochondriacal 
sufferings — days  and  hours  of  rain,  just  as  much  as  their 
parents;  that  the  four  great  seasonal  wheels  on  quarter 
days  also  affect  young  nerves,  and  that  the  child's  quick- 
silver easily  falls  and  rises  with  that  in  the  glass,  before 
storms  and  cold  weather.* 

You  should  not,  however,  consider  it  in  order  to  give 
more  way  to  it,  or  more  to  ward  it  off",  but  just  to  make 
nothing  out  of  it,  neither  anxiety  nor  sermons. 

Since  women  so  willingly  translate  their  sensations 
into  words,  and  by  their  talkativeness  distinguish  them- 
selves, more  than  we  do  ourselves,  from  parrots,  among 
which  class  of  birds  the  females  talk  little — hence  only 
the  males  are  brought  to  Europe — so  we  must  consider 
the  prologue  to  speech  in  little  girls,  that  is,  some  crying 
and  screaming,  as  the  overflow  of  the  future  stream.     A 

■  *  The  parallel  line,  or  rather  parallel  zigzag,  between  our  corporeal 

world  and  the  outer  universe  would  have  been  correctly  laid  down  long 
ago  if  the  great  changes  produced  by  the  weather  in  our  bodies  had 
rot  appeared  in  the  weaker  'part  before  their  occurrence,  in  some  along 
with  it,  and  in  stronger  natures  afterwards,  so  that  the  same  weather 
makes  one  person  ill  which  seems  to  restore  another,  on  whom,  in  fact, 
the  future  is  exerting  its  influence.  From  a  similar  reas-on  the  mother 
of  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  tide,  the  moon,  was  so  long  unknown  because 
they  followed  her  after  an  interval  of  hours  ot  even  days. 


CHAP.  Vin.]  LEVANA.  181 

boy  must  digest  hi«  pain  without  water,  a  girl  may  have 
a  few  drops  after  it. 

Children  have,  in  common  with  weak  men,  an  incapa- 
bility of  instantaneous  cessation  from  what  they  are  doing. 
Often  no  threatening  can  stop  their  laughter :  remember 
the  converse  in  their  crying,  in  order  to  treat  their  weak- 
ness as  a  physician  rather  than  as  a  judge. 

§67. 

We  may  divide  children's  hurts,  or  crying  at  hurts, 
into  four,  like  the  four  feelers  of  a  snail,  with  which  they 
touch  the  ground.  First,  screaming  about  some  outwaird 
hurt,  a  fall  for  instance.  Here  nothing  is  more  injurious 
than — what  is  so  desirable  in  all  requisitions  to  the  child 
— the  soft,  compassionate  mother's  voice  :  the  compassion 
of  another  joins  in  with  what  he  feels  for  himself,  and  he 
cries  on  for  pleasure.  Either  say  dryly,  "  Courage,"  "  Be 
quiet,"  "  It  doesn't  signify ;"  or,  still  better,  repeat  some 
merry  old  Da-capo  word,  "Hoppa"  for  instance.  The 
strength  or  weakness  of  the  child  must  decide  whether 
you  should  in  the  first  case  choke  the  pain  by  an  absolute 
forbiddal  of  its  outbreak — since  victory  over  the  sign  by 
distraction  and  division  becomes  a  victory  over  the  thing 
— or,  in  the  second,  let  nature  heal  itself  by  those  inner- 
home  methods,  which  in  grown-up  people  are  exclamations 
and  curses,  and  tears  and  noise.  You  need  not  answer 
mo,  "  Very  common  advice,"  for  I  reply,  "  But  of  very 
rare  accomplishment."  The  unaltered  course  of  old  coun- 
sellors ought  to  produce  an  improved  one  in  the  hearers. 

§  68. 

In  the  second  kind  of  crying,  on  the  contrary,  that 
caused  by  illness,  the  gentle,  soothing  mother's  voice  is  in 
its  right  place — namely,  by  the  sick  bed.  And  for  what 
other  reason  than  this,  because  the  little  spiritual  I  or 
1-let,  whose  place  it  is  to  govern  and  direct  the  physical, 
is  itself  attacked  and  plundered,  and  the  mind,  lying  in 
iron  chains,  knows  not  how  to  bear  **  the  order  of  the  iron 
crown  "  ?    Here  you  must  indulge  complainings,  yet  witu 


182     JEAN  PAUL  FEIEDEICH  EICHTER.   [fRAG.  Ill, 

out  paying  more  attention  to  them  than  at  other  times. 
Maintain  the  spiritual  regimen,  oven  if  yon  must  change 
the  physical.  Children  in  sickness  are  morally  distorted  ; 
the  sick-bed  improves — the  sick-cradle  injures.  No  sick 
child  ever  yet  died  of  good  education.  But  why  are  we 
so  serious  on  this  point  but  because  too  frequently,  in 
private,  the  whole  education  of  childish  humanity  is  only 
made  into  the  nurse  of  physical  progress ;  as  (if  the  expres- 
sion may  be  allowed)  men  use  the  holy  breath  of  life  to  turn 
the  sails  of  windmills,  and  the  next  world  as  a  swimming 
oladder  on  our  earth  ?  Bad  enough  !  Every  unholy 
thing  sets  before  itself  (and  others)  a  period  from  which 
it  will  first  begin  to  contemplate  the  eternity  of  the  Holy ; 
as  if  humanity  were  attached  to  some  future  year,  the 
twentieth,  thirtieth,  sixtieth,  instead  of  to  every  present 
moment.  Where,  and  in  what  age  and  place,  will  the 
fear  of  hurting  life  by  the  strict  consistency  of  educationi 
be  overcome  ?  Think  always  only  of  the  best ;  the  good 
vill  soon  appear. 

§  69. 

The  third  kind  of  crying  is  that  used  to  get  something. 
Here  hold  fast  Eousseau's  advice,  Never  let  the  child 
obtain  an  inch  of  ground  by  this  war-cry ;  only  the  mis-* 
fortune  is,  women  are  never  to  be  moved  to  this  patient 
indifference  towards  screaming.  But  they  say  to  him, 
"  No,  you  shall  have  nothing  while  you  are  so  naughty ; 
but,  when  you  have  done  crying,  you  shall  see  what  I 
will  give  you."  And  does  the  little  despot  want  any- 
thing more  ?  The  greatest  thing  it  might  be  permitted  ai 
mother  to  do  in  her  distress  would  be,  if  her  little  tributary 
king  were  young  enough,  to  bring  down  and  offer  him  the 
usual  tribute  and  exchequer  bills,  instead  of  this  extraor- 
dinary war-tax ;  i.e.,  to  grant  him  a  different,  instead  of 
the  required,  gift.  But,  heavens !  has  one  then  never  seeri 
how  happy  a  child  is  who  knows  no  orders,  and  consequently 
no  foreign  stubbornness — who  skips  away  as  laughingly 
after  a  no,  as  after  a  yes — who  by  no  changing  arbitrariness 
between  permission  and  restraint,  between  yes  and  no,  to 
which  a  victorious  screaming  fit  always  leads  in  the  end^ 
bas  not  yet  made  the  first  bitter  experience  of  injustice,' 


CHAP.  IX.]  LFVANA  183 

and  who,  consequently,  receives  no  other  nor  deeper 
wounds  than  those  which  can  strike  the  body  ?  Mothers, 
have  you  never  yet  seen  this  happy  child  ?  Try  it,  for  an 
experiment,  in  one  point ;  for  instance,  strictly  forbid  your 
child  of  about  two  years  and  three-quarters  old  ever  to 
touch  your  watch,  even  if  the  watch  lie  openly  every  day 
on  your  work-table,  and  only  act  thus  three  days  together 
80  as  never  to  contradict  yourself — you  will  curse  your 
former  "  forfeit  moneys." 

§  70. 

Against  the  fourth  kind  of  crying — about  loss,  from 
fear,  from  vexation — the  imposition  of  some  occupation  is 
useful.  Or  thus  :  you  earnestly  demand  the  child's  at- 
tention, and  begin  a  long  speech ;  it  is  quite  indifferent 
where  it  at  last  ends;  it  is  sufficient  that  the  child 
has  exerted  himself  and  forgotten  his  misfortune.  The 
thunder-spark  of  a  harsh  word  is  very  good — "  Quiet !  " 
for  instance.  Kever  let  the  mind's  green  and  yellow 
sickness — ill-temper — spread  over  the  whole  being.  Hence 
it  is  very  important,  especially  with  little  children,  never 
to  wait  for  the  full  outbreak  of  ill-humour,  but  at  once  to 
mark  and  repress  its  first  smallest  indication.  For  the 
rest,  never  put  to  flight  naughtinesses  which  die  away  with 
years  by  those  which  grow  with  years :  the  tears  of  child- 
hood dry  up  before  the  sighs  of  manhood  commence. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

ON  THE  TRUSTFULNESS  OP   CHILDREN. 
§71. 

LoNO  before  the  child  can  speak  he  understands  the  speech 
df  others,  and  that  without  gestures  or  cadence  in  the 
voice ;  just  as  we  understand  a  foreign  language  without 
being  able  to  speak  it.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  this 
chapter  is  placed  here. 


184  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH  RICHTER.  [FRAG.  III. 

One  need  but  lend  nearer  objects  to  the  child-faith  (fides 
implicita)  of  the  elder  theologians,*  and  their  expression 
becomes  important  and  true.  If  the  child  have  in  his 
own  father  a  holy  father,  with  all  the  advantages  of 
infallibility,  and  with  the  additional  protection  of  a  holy 
mother — if,  retaining  the  discourse  of  a  stranger  at  once 
with  belief  and  unbelief,  he  bring  it  to  his  parents  and  ask, 
Is  it  true? — if  to  him,  according  to  the  primary  propositions 
of  the  Wolfian  philosophy,  the  father  be  the  proposition  of 
the  sure  foundation,  the  mother  the  proposition  of  doubt 
and  the  teacher  the  proposition  of  the  undistinguishable ; — 
if  he,  believing  without  proof,  set  a  pair  of  human  beings 
against  the  whole  outer  world  and  equal  to  his  own  inner 
world;  if,  when  threatened,  he  rely  with  no  more  con- 
fidence on  the  bodily  strength  of  the  parental  arms  than 
on  their  spiritual  power ;  if  all  this  be  bo,  it  reveals  a 
treasure  of  humanity  which,  to  value  according  to  its 
worth,  we  need  but  to  find  and  behold  in  older  hearts. 
What  then  rests  on  this  yet  unmeasured  faith  in  men? 
In  the  intellectual  world  nearly  every  thing  ;  and  in  the 
moral  world  at  least  as  much. 

The  intellectual  world,  it  is  true,  will  be  least  ready  to 
grant  this  of  itself.  But  what  do  we  know  of  any  island 
whatever  which  a  voyager  discovers  more  than  our  faith 
in  him  gives?  Or  what  of  whole  continents?  A  rough 
seafarer  by  his  testimony  governs  a  geographic  continent 
in  the  learned  world.  If  you  oppose  to  me  the  multitude 
of  witnesses — although  few  distant  countries  have  as  many 
witnesses  as  a  testamentary  document — I  answer,  PJven 
out  of  the  multitude  of  witnesses  no  weight  of  probability 
would  ensue  if  the  great  faith  in  one  individual  were  not 
strengthened  by  the  multiplication  of  individuals.  Man 
believes  man  more  readily  about  the  distant  and  the  vast 
— about  former  centuries  and  quarters  of  the  globe,  than 
about  what  is  near  and  small ;  and  he  does  not  permit  in  a 
stranger  the  probability  of  a  lie  to  increase  with  the  facility 
and  impunity  of  uttering  it,  but  with  the  very  reverse. 

Thus  we  glean  our  Koman  and  Grecian  history  chiefly 

*  Who  understood  thereby  the  faith  imparted  to  children  and 
lieathens  in  the  hour  of  death. 


CHAP.  IX.]  LEV  ANA.  185 

from  their  own  testimony — for  we  ourselves  contradict  the 
Persians  who  contradict  Herodotus — and  we  do  not  make 
half  the  difficulty  about  the  collateral  testimony  of  a 
thousand  other  witnesses  (for  no  historian  ever  experienced 
all  that  he  calls  to  life  and  describes)  conoerning  a  succes- 
sion of  a  million  actions,  which  lawyers  do  about  one  single 
matter  of  fact  for  which  they  require  two  witnesses. 
What  gives  us  this  certainty  ?  Faith  in  humanity,  and 
so  in  men,  and  consequently  in  one  individual. 

So,  further,  the  sciences  of  medicine,  of  astronomy, 
natural  history,  chemistry,  are  built  up  sooner  and  more 
extensively  on  others'  experience  than  on  our  own :  conse- 
quently on  faith.  Even  our  convictions  from  philosophical 
calculations  call  in  trust  in  others  to  aid  the  probability 
that  we  have  not  miscalculated.  And  wherefore  does  an 
irresistible  longing  impel  us  so  strongly  to  the  opinions  of 
great  men  about  the  foundations  of  our  being,  about  God 
and  our  own  souls,  but  because  we  believe  their  assurances 
more  than  the  proofs  of  others  and  of  ourselves  ?  And  how 
does  not  intoxicated  youth  hang — like  bees  on  flowering 
lime-trees — drinking  in  the  spirit  of  a  celebrated  teacher  y 

But  this  faith  reveals  most  richly  its  glorious  form 
when  its  object  is  moral.  Here  the  heart  is  refreshed  by 
true  bliss-imparting  faith.  In  the  intellectual  world  one 
trusts  to  what  you  say — in  the  moral,  to  what  you  are. 
As  lovers  trust  each  other,  as  the  friend  trusts  the  friend, 
and  the  noble  heart  trusts  humanity,  and  the  faithful 
trust  God — this  is  the  Peter's  rock,  the  fast  foundation  of 
human  worth.  Alexander,  who  drank  the  suspicious 
medicine,  was  greater  than  the  physician  who  made  it 
healing  instead  of  poisonous;  it  is  nobler  to  exercise  a 
dangerous  confidence  than  to  deserve  it :  but  wherein 
consists  the  divinity  of  this  trustfulness  ?  Not  by  any 
means  merely  in  this — that  you  cannot  presuppose  any 
power  of  A'ital  danger  in  another  without  knowing  and 
possessing  it  actively  in  yourself — for  you  may  both  know 
and  possess  it,  and  yet  not  presuppose  it ;  and  then  in 
dangers,  as  in  the  case  of  Alexander,  the  trustful  only  is 
endangered — not  the  trusted.  But  herein  consists  the 
triumphal  banner  of  faith  in  humanity,  and  the  civio 
crown  of  heaven  ;  that  the  trusting  must  forbear  and  remain 


186  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   RICHTER.         [fRAG.  III. 

quiet — which,  as  in  war,  so  in  everything  else,  is  more 
difficult  than  to  do  and  struggle — and  that  faith,  although 
the  matter  in  hand  be  but  a  single  case,  yet  beholds  and 
embraces  all  cases,  a  whole  life.  He  who  rightly  trusts 
shows  that  he  has  seen  the  moral  deity  face  to  face ;  and 
there  is,  perhaps,  no  higher  moral  gratification  on  earth 
than  this — if  sense  and  testimony  attack  the  friend  in 
your  heart  to  hurl  him  thence,  even  then  to  stand  by  him 
with  the  God  in  you,  to  preserve  and  to  love  him,  not  ag 
formerly,  but  more  deeply. 

Therefore,  if  this  trustfulness  be  the  holy  spirit  in  man, 
a  lie  is  the  sin  against  that  spirit ;  since  we  place  another's 
word  so  high — even  above  our  own — that  according  to 
Pascal,  a  man  to  whom  any  sin  was  ascribed  would  at 
last  believe  and  realise  it.  Platner  maintains  that  the 
Veaker  the  brain  the  more  readily  it  believes,  as  is  seen 
in  drunken  persons,  sickly  women,  and  children :  but  the 
question  here  becomes  whether  this  (merely  physical) 
weakness  which  affords  room  for  so  many  tender  develop- 
ments of  the  heart — for  love,  inspiration,  religion,  poetry 
— does  not  prepare,  though  at  the  cost  of  the  other  powers, 
the  true,  pure  loneliness  of  absolute  dominion  to  the 
holiest  of  the  perceptions,  the  perception  of  the  holiness 
of  others  ?  The  English  are  more  easy  of  belief  than  any 
other  nation,  but  neither  weaker  nor  weak :  they  hate  a 
lie  too  much  ever  to  presuppose  it. 

§  72. 

I  return  to  the  trustfulness  of  children.  Nature  has, 
as  if  figuratively,  richly  prepared  them  for  reception  :  the 
bones  of  the  ear  are,  according  to  Haller,  the  only  ones 
which  are  as  large  in  the  child  as  in  the  grown-up  man  ; 
or,  to  use  another  simile,  the  veins  of  imbibition  are,  accord- 
ing to  Darwin,  the  fuller  the  younger  they  are.  Holily 
preserve  childlike  trust,  without  which  there  can  be  no 
education.  Never  forget  that  the  •little  dark  child  looks 
up  to  you  as  to  a  lofty  genius,  an  apostle  full  of  revelations, 
whom  he  trusts  altogether  more  absolutely  than  his 
equals,  and  that  the  lie  of  an  apostle  destroys  a  whole 
moral  world.     Wherefore  never  bury  your  infallibility  by 


CHAP.  IX.j  LEVANA.  187 

nseless  proofs,  nor  by  confessions  ef  error :  the  admission 
of  your  ignorance  comports  better  with  you.  Power  and 
scepticism  the  child  can  sufficiently  early,  and  not  at 
your  charges,  polemically  and  protestantly  exercise  and 
strengthen  on  the  declared  opinions  of  strangers.     •  - 

Do  not  in  the  least  degree  support  religion  and  morality 
by  reasons  :  even  the  multitude  of  pillars  darken  and 
contract  churches.  Let  the  Holy  in  yourself  be  directed 
(without  lock  and  turnkey)  to  the  Holy  in  the  child. 
Faith — like  the  innate  morality,  the  patent  of  the  nobility 
of  humanity  brought  with  it  from  heaven — opens  the 
little  heart  to  the  great  old  heart.  To  injure  this  faith  is 
to  resemble  Calvin  who  banished  music  out  of  the  churches  : 
for  faith  is  the  echo  of  the  heavenly  music  of  the  spheres.. 

When  in  your  last  hour — think  well  of  it — all  in  the 
broken  spirit  fades  and  dies,  poems,  thoughts,  strivings, 
rejoicings :  even  then  the  night-flower  of  faith  still  blooms 
on  and  refreshes  with  its  perfume  in  the  last  darkness. 


188     JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRICH  RICHTER.   [fRAG.  Ill, 


APPENDIX  TO  THE  THIRD  FRAGMENT. 

ON   PHYSICAL   EDUUTION. 

The  expression  is,  properly,  false ;  for  as  the  science  of 
care  of  the  body  it  would  equally  apply  to  beasts,  strong 
men,  and  the  aged;  the  cook  would  be  a  Labonne,  and 
the  kitchen  a  magazine  of  school-books.  Permit  me  here 
to  insert  some  observations  on  attention  to  the  bodies 
of  children  which  I  addressed  to  a  newly-married  man 
shortly  before  his  wife's  confinement.  (Some  readers  will 
not  agree  so  theoretically  with  this  letter  as  my  three 
children,  who,  during  the  printing  and  distribution  of  the 
first  edition,  were  educated  in  accordance  with  it,  practically 
did,  by  their  flourishing  condition.) 

You  may  freely  inform  your  dear  wife  why  I  write 
now  on  this  point  instead  of  half  a  year  later ;  namely, 
because  she  is  now  still  trustful,  but  will,  in  time  to  come, 
be  as  disobedient  as  possible.  I  have  known  the  most  in- 
telligent women  who  have  really  assisted  and  followed  up 
the  wishes  of  their  most  intelligent  husbands  in  regard  to 
the  physical  care  of  their  child  until  the  second  had  not  yet 
arrived ;  but  then,  or  at  most  when  the  fourth  came,  the 
dietetic  kitchen-Latin  and  medicinal  patois  of  the  women 
assumed  the  government,  and  nothing  more  could  be 
effected  than  one  or  two  propositions  without  results. 

A  woman  during  her  first  pregnancy  might  easily 
commit  to  memory  Hufeland's  "  Good  Advice  to  Mothers," 
since  in  the  new  edition  there  would  be  but  three  and  a 
half  pages  to  be  learned  monthly. 

But  Heaven  preserve  every  one  from  that  timid  over- 
carefulness  with  mistrusts  nature,  and  has  every  child's 
tx)oth  extracted  by  the  physician  or  apothecary !  If  one 
venture  nothing  upon  children,  yet  one  ventures  them- 
selves :  their  bodies  probably,  their  minds  certainly. 
Ouly  let  a  person  observe  the  rosy  children  in  lonely 


APPENDIX.]  LEV  ANA,  189 

villages,  where  the  whole  Brownian  apothecary's  shop  has 
nothing  in  its  phials  save  brandy ;  or  the  descendants  of 
savages  compared  with  the  fading  Flora  of  noble  houses, 
for  which  every-day  draughts  of  every  possible  kind  are 
compounded. 

However,  nowhere  is  Hufeland's  "  Good  Advice  to 
Mothers  "  less  attended  to  than  in  the  huts  of  peasants 
and  beggars.  There  one  sees  many  little  pale  creatures 
looking  out  of  the  narrow  windows  when  one  goes  out  on 
sledging  expeditions.  But  they  bloom  again  with  the 
eaith ;  the  open  air  makes  them  rosy  sooner  than  the  sun 
does  the  apple. 

Hunters,  savages,  mountaineers,  soldiers — all  contend 
with  all  their  powers  for  the  advantages  of  fresh  air ;  all 
those  who  have  lived  to  be  a  century  and  a  half  old  were 
beggars ;  and  in  fact  if  a  man  wish  to  become  nothing 
but  old,  and  to  continue  nothing  but  healthy,  there  is  no 
more  wholesome,  fresh-air-imbibing  exercise  than  begging ; 
nevertheless  mothers  believe  that  a  child,  placed  for  half 
an  hour  at  an  open  window,  inhales  out  of  a  town,  which 
itself  is  but  a  larger  room  and  merely  contains  street  air 
instead  of  house  air,  as  much  ethereal  breath  as  is  necessary 
to  purify  and  cleanse  twenty-three  hours  and  a  half  of 
cavern  air.  Does  no  one  remember,  or  no  one  remind  her 
with  all  her  dread  of  air,  that  during  the  miserable 
autumn  weather  she  travelled,  on  account  of  the  war, 
three  days  long,  with  her  infant  baby  in  an  open  vehicle 
through  the  pure  fresh  air,  without  any  other  particular  in- 
jury than  that  of  being  brought  hither  ?  Could  no  chemist, 
by  visible  representations  of  the  different  kinds  of  poisonous 
air,  impart  to  the  mothers  in  towns  a  sense  of  the  value 
of  heaven's  free  air,  in  order  to  break  them  of  their  care- 
lessness about  the  only  invuible  and  ever  active  element  ? 

Why  do  you  write, — "  I  fear  nothing  so  much  as  the 
procuring  of  a  wet  nurse  "  ? — Two  of  my  children,  precisely 
the  strongest,  were  brought  up  without  the  breast.  But 
if  a  nurse  be  commonly  healthy,  and  have  not  much  less 
given  her  to  do,  nor  much  more  to  eat  than  during  her 
necessitous  solitude,  she  may  any  day  enter  your  service. 
Certainly  I  do  not  otter  niyself  as  security  against  any 
mental  poisoning  by  her  morals  and  care,  any  more  than 


190  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   RICHTER.        [fRAG.  III. 

I  do  for  all  women  servants  from  the  midwife  downwards  ; 
an  honest,  old,  but  good-tempered  man-servant,  your 
John,  for  instance,  would  be  much  better  for  a  child's 
heart  than  any  nurse  and  child's  maid ;  just  as  at  a  later 
period,  for  the  same  reason,  children  are  more  spoiled 
and  enervated  in  the  friendly,  praising,  indulgent  society 
of  women  than  in  the  cold,  dry  company  of  men.  As 
regards  the  physical  empoisonment  of  the  milk  by  mental 
.excitement,  I  should  prefer  the  nurse  to  the  lady.  One 
often  sees  a  common  mother,  as  a  bombarding  ship  or 
ibomb-shell,  foster  that  kind  of  conversation  with  another 
woman  which  is  the  only  one  in  this  world  that  has 
never  grown  wearisome  and  which  men  call  wrangling 
and  abusing ;  but  the  suckling  has  observed  or  cried  little 
about  it.  On  the  contrary,  a  lady,  whom  a  false  stitch  of 
her  maid,  like  the  sting  of  a  tarantula,  sets  into  an  armed 
> dance,  may  poison  it  three  or  four  times  a  day.  What 
concerns  another  mental  poison-draught  for  the  child  I 
utterly  deny.  If,  as  I  believe  I  am  able  to  prove,  no 
partial  transmigration  of  soul  from  the  mother  into  the 
new-born  child  be  possible,  how  much  less  can  mind  in- 
fluence mind  by  means  of  a  nourishment  which  first  affects 
the  stomach  !  One  might  just  as  well  believe,  with  the 
Caribbees,  that  pork  produces  small  eyes ;  or,  with  the 
Brazilians,  that  the  flesh  of  ducks  imparts  the  lazy  awk- 
ward pace  of  a  duck.*  On  this  principle,  goat's  milk,  and 
perhaps  most  nurses'  milk,  would  have  the  same  effect  as 
that  of  Jupiter's  nurse,  which  so  completely  transformed 
the  god  that  he  may  be  employed  as  anything  rather  than 
an  example  of  many  of  the  ten  commandments.  Bechstein, 
it  is  true,  remarks  that  otters  may  be  tamed  by  human 
milk;  but  one  may  find  a  much  nearer  and  truer  cause  in 
the  circumstances  which  such  a  milk-diet  presu]3poses. 

Much  contention  may  take  place  about  the  relation  of 
the  mother's  milk  to  the  child's  body.  If  a  healthy 
stomach,  like  death,  make  all  alike,  potatoes,  bread, 
venison  steaks,  ship  biscuits,  ale,  insects  (crabs),  worms 
(snails),  and,  finally,  human  flesh,  into  the  same  chyle, 
will  not  the  stomach  of  a  child  be  able  to  reduce  its 
nurse's  milk  to  the  same  substance  ?    And  does  not  tin 

♦  Hoiiie'a  *  History  of  Mankind,'  tJ.  ii. 


APPENDIX.]  LEVANA.  191 

child's  body,  in  all  its  organic  peculiarities,  as  frequently 
resemble  its  father  as  its  mother?  Why,  if  the  milk 
(instead  of  organisation)  effect  so  much,  are  not  most  of 
the  nobility  giants,  since  peasants'  milk  is  often  added  to 
aristocratic  blood  as  wine  to  water?  Indeed,  on  the 
ground  of  the  influence  of  maternal  relationship,  there 
would  be  more  to  determine  for,  than  against,  a  nurse. 
The  body  ceaselessly  polarises  itself;  consequently  the 
nitrogen,  for  instance,  of  the  nurse  would  counterbalance 
the  oxygen  of  the  lady ;  and,  on  the  other  side,  a  town 
lady  would  be  the  best  official  nurse  of  a  peasant  boy.  A 
cosmopolite  tutor  and  diet  master  might  go  still  farther, 
and,  in  order  all-sidedly  to  exercise  and  train  a  swaddled 
child — mummies  are  swaddled  corpses  and  helmsmen 
swaddled  men — insist  on  its  having  one  day,  ass's  milk 
(the  positive  pole,  thesis),  the  next,  dog's  milk  (the  nega- 
tive pole,  antithesis),  the  day  after,  human  milk  (indiffer- 
ence, synthesis). 

As  early  as  possible  determine  the  hours  of  eating,  and 
consequently  the  times  for  sleep ;  only  observing  that  in 
the  first  years  the  intervals  must  be  more  frequent  and 
shorter  than  afterwards. 

The  stomach  is  such  a  creature  of  habit,  such  a  time- 
keeper, that  if,  when  hungry,  we  delay  its  usual  period  of 
gratification  for  a  few  hours,  it  does  nothing  but  reject 
food.  But  if  its  hours  of  compulsory  service  be  appointed 
it  works  beyond  its  powers.  It  is  only  in  later  years 
when  the  sketch  and  colours  of  the  little  man  are  more 
strongly  marked  that  middle  tints  and  half  shadows  may 
be  ventured  on  ;  a  child,  like  a  savage,  is  often  freed,  often 
made  a  slav  ,  by  sleep  and  eating ;  the  physical  nature 
is  then  either  exercised  or  vanquished,  and  the  spiritual  is 
crowned  in  both  cases. 

Do  not  keep  the  tumult  of  daily  life  far  distant  from 
the  little  infant,  as  though  it  were  an  aristocratic  patient. 
If  you  do  not  actually  permit  the  fire  bell  or  the  discharge 
of  artillery  to  be  heard  by  its  cradle,  its  long  deep  slumber 
in  the  world  will  so  harden  it  against  every  noise,  that 
afterwards,  when  its  ears  are  quicker,  it  will  yet  be  able 
to  sleep  in  the  midst  of  noise ;  and  what  is  still  better, 
and  prevents  injurious  night  feeding,  it  will  only  sleep-all 


192  JEAN  PAUL  rrJEDEICH  RICHTER.        [fRAG.  III. 

the  sounder  in  the  contrasting  stillness  of  night.  I 
earnestly  contend  against  suckling  in  the  night ;  for  your 
wife  ought  to  sleep ;  and  it  is  quite  sufficient  if  she  suckle 
her  little  darling  shortly  before  going  to  sleep,  and  then 
again  immediately  after  wakening.  It  is  a  trifle,  but  so  is 
a  line ;  why  may  I  not  give  one  to  the  other  ?  I  mean, 
why  do  you  lay  the  head  of  a  new-born  child  higher  than 
its  body  ?  In  the  months  preceding  birth  the  body  actually 
stood  on  the  head;  I  should  think  that  a  horizontal 
direction  after  a  perpendicular  was  quite  sufficient ;  where- 
fore, then,  create  a  new  want,  or  prevent  the  subsequent 
use  of  a  remedy,  which  the  higher  placing  of  the  head  is 
to  children  in  case  of  colds,  by  employing  it  before  it  is 
needed  ? 

With  regard  to  animal  food,  most  people  say — Wait  till 
there  are  teeth  to  bite  it.  Whj  ?  toothless  children  take, 
with  advantageous  effects,  broths,  and  the  strongest  honey- 
thick  extract  of  meat  that  I  know,  the  yolk  of  eggs.  Even 
flesh-meat  is  less  to  be  objected  to  on  account  of  its  size, 
since  it  may  be  cut  quite  as  small  as  it  can  be  chewed, 
than  on  account  of  its  being  swallowed  without  chewing, 
that  is,  without  saliva.  But  children  enjoy  and  digest 
milk  and  broth  almost  entirely  without  previous  gastric 
juice,  the  saliva,  as  birds  of  prey  do  pieces  of  flesh.  Pro- 
bably large  pieces  are  chiefly  injurious  because  we  take 
more  of  them  and  quicker  than  little  ones  in  the  same 
time ;  for  the  stomach  reckons  satiety — in  hunger  as  in 
thirst — not  according  to  quantity  (for  a  pint  of  water  will 
frequently  not  quench  the  thirst  as  well  as  a  slice  of 
lemon)  but  according  to  organic  assimilation  :  hence  of  no 
kind  of  food  does  one  more  easily  eat  so  much  too  much  as 
of  what  is  indigestible;  because  the  difficult  and  more 
tardy  assimilation  delays  and  conceals  the  feeling  of 
satiety.  What  digestion  is,  no  physiologist  has  hitherto 
been  able  to  explain.  The  gastric  juice  which  is  said  to 
excite  or  produce  hunger  (is  there  any  thirst  juice  for 
thirst?)  with  its  few  spoonfuls  is  not  sufficient — when 
diluted  and  surrounded  by  a  bottle  of  wine  and  a  plate  of 
soup,  as  a  grain  of  arsenic  by  oil — to  dissolve  a  Styrian 
cock's  comb,  not  to  mention  an  early  meal,  or  even  a  late 
jne.     The  gentle  animal  warmth  which,  as  August  is  the 


APPENDIX.]  LEVANA.  193 

wine-cook,  ought  to  be  the  cooking-wine  of  food,  is  cooled 
and  deluged  by  cold  liquids  with  less  of  disadvantage  than 
advantage  to  the  digestion.  If  the  stomach  of  men,  as 
their  nature  in  general,  work  as  an  ellipse,  with  two  foci, 
and  80  not  merely  as  a  membranaceous  vulture  stomach, 
but  also  as  a  fleshy  poultry  stomach,  and  along  with 
chemical  possess  also  mechanical  force,  I  do  not  understand 
how  a  pressure — that,  for  instance,  of  meat -broth  or  of 
gruel — assists  it  in  digestion. 

But  we  are  concerned  with  the  thing  itself,  not  with  iHa 
explanation.  Flesh-meat  seems  especially  useful  to  coun- 
teract the  weakness  of  childhood  and  the  superabundance 
of  sour  food ;  since  even  the  young  of  granivorous  birds 
are  fed  advantageously  with  eggs,  worms  and  insects.  A 
slight  and  rare  surfeit  will  exercise  and  strengthen  the 
stomach's  power  of  endurance :  only  do  not  let  the  beast 
of  burden  be  overloaded  with  easily  injurious  substances, 
such  as  eggs  or  meat,  but  with  things  of  moderately  long 
duration,  such  as  pulse  or  potatoes. 

Why  do  not  people  give  children,  at  times  when  they 
will  not  take  their  food,  sugar  (as  distinct  from  con- 
fections as  food  from  poison)  on  whose  nourishing  sub- 
stance the  negro  feeds  himself  and  his  horse  during 
journeys  of  days  together  ? 

During  the  earliest  years — I  was  about  to  commence  so 
again,  but  without  any  reason, — for  the  strict  ordering  of 
life  only  comprehends  a  period  sufficiently  long  to  raise  and 
fasten  the  scaffolding  of  life.  But  as  the  danger  of  death 
diminishes  every  day — it  is  well  known  to  be  greatest  at 
first — growing  freedom  and  powerful  many-sidedness  must 
arm  the  child  against  all  the  two-and-thirty  winds  and 
storms  of  life. 

Tea  and  coffee,  as  well  as  cakes  and  fruit,  are  generally 
given  much  more  willingly  and  abundantly  to  children 
than  wholesome  wine  as  a  tonic,  and  wholesome  hopped 
beer  as  a  drink ;  whereas  it  were  much  better  not  to 
give  the  two  liquids  at  all,  cakes  very  seldom,  and  fruit 
abundantly  only  in  the  early  glowing  years.  As  to  the 
emperor  Joseph  II.,  who  by  an  ordinance  of  1785  forbade 
that  wine  should  be  given  to  children*  (somewhat  as 

*  No  imperial  law  would  be  less  likely  than  this  to  be  observed  in 
L  O 


194  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDEICH   EICHTER.       [fRAG.  IH. 

tobacco,  liops,  and  Peruvian  bark  were  at  an  earlier  date 
prohibited) — T  put  him  to  flight  by  the  children  of  the 
many  wine-countries,  who  have  not  yet  perished  thereby; 
else  would  there  meanwhile  be  no  longer  a  right  bank  to 
the  Rhine — to  leave  the  left  out  of  the  question.  By 
all  means  give  them  wine,  (but  not  any  old,  Spanish  ol- 
Hungarian,)  not  out  of  a  punch-ladle,  but  out  of  a  tea-- 
spoon,  and  more  frequently  than  abundantly,  and  every 
year  less,  and  in  the  season  of  manly  strength  and  vigour 
none  at  alL  Bitter  beer,  at  a  proper  distance  from  two 
meals,  is  at  once  excitement  and  nourishment.  After- 
wards, in  the  eighth  and  tenth  years,  water  must  be  tho 
drink  and  beer  the  tonic.  I  would  not  merely  allow 
girls  to  drink  beer  longer  than  boys,  but  always ;  unless 
the  mothers,  like  true  Lycurguses,  forbid  growing  fat. 
Thank  God,  my  friend,  in  the  name  of  your  posterity, 
that  you,  like  myself,  do  not  live  in  Saxony,  or  in  th6 
Saxon  Yoigtland,  but  in  Baireuth,  near  the  best  beer — 
the  champagne  beer. 

White  beer  without  hops  is  a  slimy  poison  for  children ; 
and  unhopped  brown  beer  not  much  better.  Those  who 
are  too  fat  should  only  take  it  in  water,  as  the  Greeks  did 
wine.  In  the  early  ages  of  Germany,  be-fore  tea,  coffee, 
and  foreign  wine  ruled  and  weakened,  fj)urfold  stronger 
beer  was  brewed ;  then  people  did  not  dig  the  bones  of 
giants  out  of  the  earth,  but  frequently  consigned  them  to 
it ;  whereas  for  us,  under  the  government  oj  concentrated 
tea  and  coffee  poison,  the  only  antidote,  beei*,  is  weakened. 

About  one  point,  my  friend  •  (forgive  my  following  no 
other  order  than  that  of  yourself  and  your  wishes)  you 
will  in  future  often  grow  hot  or  cold  towards  your  gentle 
wife,  at  least  I  expect  so — and  that  is,  actually  about  heat 
and  cold.  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  moi'e  than  one 
excellent  author  has  much  prolonged  the  continuance  of 
the  honey-moon,  holding  it  to  resemble  the  yeai'-  weeks  of 
Daniel,  and  has  only  fixed  its  certain  end  after  tlie  birth 
of  the  first  child ;    concerning  this,  however,  there   has 


Scotland,  where  the  smallest  children  before  they  ,grow  up  into  the 
Btronge.;t  Scots,  have  brandy  given  to  them. — Humphry)  ClinJcet'M 
Travels,  vol.  iii.  p.  19. 


Appendix.]  levana.  195 

heen  much  quarrelling :  partly  on  tlie  man's  side  with 
medical  reasons,  and  partly  on  the  woman's  with  her 
own ;  I  mean  this  in  case  the  child  be  healthy ;  if  it  bo 
«ickly  perfect  rage  ensues.  I  once  wrote  a  paragraph 
on  this  subject  in  case  I  should  ever  experience  the 
happiness  of  forming  myself  on  my  own  principles  of 
education. 

Since  women,  like  a  bom  parlour-race,  or  household 
divinity — we  are  merely  sea,  land,  and  air  gods  ;  or,  com- 
pared to  those  domesticated  doves,  kindly-meaning  but 
untamed  wild  pigeons — love  warmth  as  they  do  coffee,  and 
so,  besides  covering,  seek  all  manner  of  warm  wraps,  only 
far  too  many  for  one  body  ;  and  would  rather  have  nine 
accumulated  veils  and  shawls  than  one,  though  of  the 
largest,  and  for  that  reason  lay  aside  furs,  however  warm 
and  costly  they  be;  therefore  it  is  that  these  mentally 
tropical  beings  willingly  press  their  preferences  and 
necessities  on  the  beings  they  love  best — their  children. 
But  does  not  nature  herself  at  birth  make  the  most  marked 
change  when  she  casts  it  out  of  an  organic  bed,  which  she 
herself  wanned,  through  the  air,  into  a  lifeless  one  for 
which  the  child  must  be  the  bed- warmer  ?  To  which  is  to 
be  added  the  partial  and,  moreover,  injurious  uncovering, 
that  of  the  face  and  head,  after  the  previous  uniform 
warmth  of  the  whole  body.  Hence  the  question  might  be 
mooted,  whether  the  head  of  the  new-bom  infant — so  hair- 
less, so  thin-skulled  and  unclosed — does  not  need  to  be 
protected  by  warm  coverings  more,  or  at  least  as  much  as 
the  other  members,  if  many  men,  among  whom  we,  the 
whole  congregated  posterity  of  our  ancestors,  aro  to  bo 
reckoned,  had  not  hitherto  withstood  it  and  are  still  alive  : 
80  richly  does  Nature  gush  forth  in  new  springs  whether 
you  close  against  her  one  or  one  hundred.  In  the  mean- 
time she  receives  the  child  after  this  transit  from  the  hot 
zone  of  the  earth  into  the  cold  one,  with  two  invigorating 
provocatives ;  with  nourishment  for  the  lungs  and  nourish- 
ment for  the  stomach — two  hitherto  unemployed  members. 
Well,  then,  let  the  mother  imitate  therein  the  universal 
mother,  and  not  let  the  child  fly  from  extemal  cold,  but 
conquer  it  by  excitements  to  inward  warmth.  The  best 
ftir-coat  for  children  grows  on  wine  mountains.    Joy  is 

0  2 


196  JEAN  PAL'L  FRIEDEICH  EIGHT  ER.    [fEAG.  IH. 

the  warm  stinny  side  of  the  mind  and  of  the  body.  Exer- 
cise is  the  third  non-conductor  of  frost.  The  new  eulogists 
of  warmth  are  only  in  the  right  when  they  are  interrupted. 
In  the  cold  air  of  a  room  a  child  would  shrivel  np  like  a 
plant  on  the  top  of  a  mountain ;  but  it  would  do  the  same 
in  everlasting  heat :  the  strongest  men  are  not  produced 
either  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  the  equator,  or 
of  the  poles,  but  in  the  temperate  zones,  which  alternate 
between  frost  and  warmth,  but  with  a  preponderance  of 
the  latter.  Do  not  let  any  apartments  for  children  be  cold, 
with  the  exception  of  the  sleeping-room ;  for  bed  is  of 
itself  an  external  fur  covering,  and  sleep  an  internal  one ; 
and  what  additional  warmth  is  possible,  in  case  of  illness, 
if  you  have  already  more  than  reached  the  degree  per- 
mitted ?  If  you  allow  your  future  Paul  (if  I  may  venture 
to  choose,  his  godfather  before  you)  to  go  without  shoes 
(which  would  be  to  you  but  a  saving  of  leather,  but  to  Mm 
of  a  whole  funeral  train  of  evils) ;  or  if  you  order  your 
future  Paulina  (to  whom  he  will,  probably,  with  gentle- 
manly politeness  permit  the  first  entrance  into  life,  for 
most  first  children  are  females,)  to  go  without  stockings, 
though  soled  or  shoed,  then,  in  every  illness  where  a  warm 
foot-bath  is  advisable,  you  can  give  one  of  the  longest 
duration  simply  by  a  pair  of  shoes  and  stockings.  I  had 
my  reasons,  friend,  for  recommending  shoes,  as  though 
they  were  bridal  shoes,  to  your  Paulina,  although,  alas ! 
along  with  them  all  the  corns,  cold  feet,  thin  tender  soles 
and  heels,  which  a  shoe  includes.  For  I  know  from  afar 
off  the  despair,  the  womanly  dread,  lest  feet  without  shoes 
should  really  grow  as  large  as  nature  intended,  and  so  quite 
beyond  the  conventional  size  of  a  foot.  Our  Chinese 
Podolatry  (foot- worship)  more  readily  suffers  the  nakedness 
of  the  higher  parts,  for  instance,  of  the  bosom  or  of  the 
back,  than  for  a  girl  to  go  barefoot.  Luckily — in  this 
case — a  boy  is  not  a  girl.  So  let  him  dance  barefoot 
through  his  young  world,  like  the  ancient  heroes,  who  are 
always  represented  with  bare  feet.  If  his  foot  grow  into 
a  pedestal,  what  signifies  it  to  us  two  men,  since  we  and 
even  rational  women,  care  so  little  about  it? 

Why  do   mothers  talk  a  hundred  times  about  taking 
cold,  and  scarcely  once  about  becoming  over-heated,  which, 


APPENDIX.]  LEVANA.  197 

especially  in  winter,  so  readily  passes  into  fatal  cold  ?  1 
shall  answer  this  in  a  very  unexpected  way,  when  I  say, 
It  is  because  winter  lies  nearest  to  their  heart,  and  con- 
sequently most  in  their  eyes.  Winter  is,  in  fact,  the 
bleacher  and  fair  colourer  of  their  faces,  and  they  approach 
the  snow  as  a  new  whitening  material ;  hence  summer  is 
much  too  warm  for  them  to  uncover  their  necks  and 
shoulders  as  they  do  in  winter  which  does  not  discolour 
them.  Hence  those  tender  chamber-covered  nurslings, 
lily-white  and  lily-fragile,  come  from  the  north,  and  re- 
semble those  white  blades  of  grass  which  may  be  found 
under  stones  in  the  midst  of  green  spring.  Certainly  this 
dazzling  winter- snow  does  not  bear  the  fruits  of  the  true 
blossom-snow,  for  which,  nevertheless,  we  often  mistake  it, 
as  we  do  beauty  for  strength. 

A  fortunate  accident  for  daughters  is  the  Grecian 
garment-fashion  of  the  present  Gymnosophists,  (naked 
female  runners,)  which,  it  is  true,  injures  the  mothers,  but 
hardens  the  daughters  ;  for  as  age  and  custom  should  avoid 
every  fresh  cold,  so  youth  exercises  itself  on  it,  as  on  every 
hardship,  until  it  can  bear  still  greater. 

ITie  Unalasks  (hear  it,  ye  enemies  of  every  hardening 
process  !)  dip  a  crying  child  into  the  sea  until  it  is  quiet ; 
it  necessarily  afterwards  grows  the  stronger  for  it.*  So, 
eimile-wise,  the  present  naked  manner  of  dressing  is  a  cohl 
bath  into  which  the  daughters  are  dipped,  who  usually 
grow  cheerful  in  it.  A  physician  should  always  invent 
the  fashions  ;  since  he  cannot  remove  a  new  one  except  by 
something  still  newer. 

A  system  of  physical  hardening  is,  indeed,  mentally 
necessary,  because  the  body  is  the  anchor-ground  of  courage. 
Its  aim  and  consequence  is  not  so  much  health  and  pro- 
longation of  life — for  weakly  and  sensual  persons  often 
grow  old,  and  nuns  and  court  ladies  still  oftener — as  a 
fortification  against  weakness  of  character,  and  for  cheer- 
fulness and  activity.  As  it  is  not  a  woman's  but  only  a 
man's  mind  which  becomes  more  womanish  by  effeminacy, 
it  may  easily  happen  in  the  higher  ranks,  in  which  the 
men  are,  comparatively,  more  effeminate  than  the  women, 
that  the  weak  will  surpass  the  weakened  sex ;  and  men 
♦  See  Kanfs  Phys.  Geog.  von  Vollmeer,  vol.  iiL  Ist  diy. 


198  JEAN   PAUL   FEIEDRICS  EICHTER.       [fKAG.  Tit 

and  women  have  the  delightful  prospect  of  resembling 
date-trees,  of  which  the  female  only  produces  fruit,  the 
male  nothing  but  flowers. 

The  present  fashion  in  dress,  regarded  as  an  air  bath 
establishment,  might  have  its  ♦^nd  more  perfectly  obtained 
among  children,  if  the  garments  were  occasionally  entirely 
laid  aside.  I  mean,  why  do  not  we  give  ourselves,  but  still 
more  our  children,  the  pleasure  of  playing  naked  half  a 
day  in  the  warm  air  and  sunshine,  like  Adam  in  his 
paradise  of  innocence  ? 

In  ancient  Germany,  where  our  ancestors  tasted  the 
forbidden  fruit  later,  and  consequently  hung  the  fig-leaves 
later  round  them,  the  children  were  permitted,  as  in  Egypt, 
to  remain  ten  years  longer  in  nakedness:  what  spirits  of 
physical  power  must  not  have  stepped  from  their  cold 
forests,  when  eighteen  hundred  years  of  warmth  and 
luxury  have  not  sufficed  to  make  their  descendants  weaker 
than  either  of  us  two  !  So  the  wood  of  stripped  trees  can 
bear  a  greater  weight  than  that  of  those  which  retain 
their  bark. 

One  need  but  see  how  light,  active,  and  refreshed  an 
unclothed  child  feels,  drinking  and  swimming  through  the 
air,  moving  its  muscles  and  limbs  freely,  and  ripening 
in  the  sun  like  a  fruit  from  which  the  leaves  have  been 
removed.  So  many  children's  games  are  Olympic  and 
gymnastic,  let  the  children,  then,  at  least  be  Greeks,  that 
is  to  say,  unclothed. 

The  ccld  water  bath  may  be  best  used  immediately  after 
the  air  bath ;  if,  in  other  respects,  it  may  be  uncondition- 
ally recommended  to  children  under  four  years  old.  There 
is,  however,  one  substitute  for  the  bath ;  that  of  a  baptism 
in  daily  colder  water  of  the  whole  body,  though  each  limb 
be  only  wet  in  turns  and  quickly  rubbed  dry.  I  permitted 
this  Anabaptist  (re-immersing)  sin  against  Brown  and  his 
followers*  to  be  perpetrated  every  day  upon  my  own  chil- 
dren :  the  consequences  were,  not  chilliness,  colds  and 
weakness,  but  the  very  reverse.*  Schwarz,  in  his  treatise 
on  education,  regards  the  dislike  of  a  child  to  this  treatment 

*  With  regard  to  the  advantages  of  coldness  without  retardation,  aa 
to  how  such  sun-obscurations  exist,  see  Vorschule  der  Aesthetiky  iii. 
p.  578, 


APPENDIX.]  LEVANA.  199 

as  a  hint  from  nature ;  but  then  the  samereascn  would 
apply  to  many  medicines,  and  also  to  the  warm  bath,  which 
children  struggle  against  in  the  first  instance,  because 
they  feel  all  at  once  so  many  unaccustomed  delights. 

If  cold  water  have  medicinal  powers  for  the  stomach 
which  evaporate  when  warmed,  so  has  it  also  for  the 
imbibing  skin.  After  air,  cold  and  warm  baths,  sleep  is 
beneficial. 

There  is  still  one  kind  of  bath,  hitherto  unused,  which 
would  be  very  advantageous  both  to  parents  and  children, 
1  mean  a  thunder-storm  bath.  Physicians  employ  in  their 
experiments  on  nervous  invalids,  electric  air,  electric 
plates,  electric  baths;  but  thunder,  or  rather  thunder 
water,  they  have  not  as  yet  prescribed.  Have  they  never 
experienced  that  a  person  never  feels  so  fresh,  cheerful  and 
elastic  as  after  a  warm  or  tepid  rain  has  penetrated  to  the 
skin  ?  Since  human  beings,  when  dry  again  after  a  storm, 
feel  so  much  invigorated,  and  the  w<;rld  of  flowers  still  more 
80,  why  will  they  not  receive  this  united  fire  and  water 
baptism  from  above,  and  suffer  themselves  to  be  raised  and 
healed  by  the  wonder-working  arm  in  the  thunder  cloud  ? 

One  ought  to  have  an  especial  rain  or  bathing  suit  of 
clothes,  as  a  frequenter  of  the  spring  cloud-baths;  and 
then,  when  there  is  promise  of  wet  weather,  make  a  rain 
party,  and  return  home  dripping. 

The  bath  company  must,  alas !  change  their  clothes — 
the  only  thing  about  it  which  does  not  please  me.  The 
shepherd  boy,  even  in  the  cold  rainy  days  of  November, 
takes  no  chest  of  clothes  with  him  to  the  field;  neither 
does  any  French  soldier  who  has  marched  himself  warm 
all  day  in  the  rain,  and  lies  down  at  night  on  the  cold 
ground ;  the  fisher  stands  with  his  feet  in  the  water  and 
his  head  in  the  sun,  precisely  breaking  and  reversing  the 
physician's  rule ; — yet  the  only  hundred-and-seventy  year 
old  man  in  England  was  a  fisher,  and  had  previously  been 
&  soldier  and  a  beggar !  Heavens  !  with  what  a  fair  play- 
^ound  and  free  city  of  the  body  is  our  mind  originally 
surrounded !  and  how  long  must  it  have  been  the  slave  of 
Bin  and  of  opinion  ere  it  was  condemned  to  bo  the  chained" 
helmsman  or  ship-mover  of  the  body ! 

Mental  all-sidedness,  which  means  all-powerfulness,  is 
not  granted  us,  but  physical  is ;  now  let  childhood  at  least 


200  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDEICH   RICHTER.      [fRAG.  III. 

be  formed  for  this,  and  the  body,  which  can  inhabit  all 
countries,  be  exercised  in  accommodating  itself  to  all ;  as 
the  Russian  does  who  imitates  his  own  empire,  a  miniature 
Europe  in  climate,  and  endures  a  vapour-and-ice-bath, 
and  the  extremes  of  hunger  and  of  repletion.  Is  it  not 
enough  to  be  so  pampered  as  to  make  a  pillow  of  a  snow- 
ball ? — and  now  do  we  actually  use  a  cloak  bag,  or  even  a 
feather  bed  ?  * 

I  add  to  the  above  remarks,  that  parents  in  physical 
matters — alas !  that  it  should  happen  in  morals — ought  to 
require  more  from  their  children  than  from  themselves  : 
in  accordance  with  this,  let  the  rain-wet  clothes  at  ap- 
pointed times  dry  on  the  children. 

Would  that  every  mother  would  consider  that,  as  she 
opposes  inoculation  to  natural  small-pox,  so,  on  the  same 
grounds,  she  should  oppose  the  blow  of  accidental,  un- 
expected, and  therefore  unprepared-for  danger,  by  the 
favourable  hardening  of  versatile  childhood  when  the 
choice  of  the  battle-field  is  so  easy ! 

Our  modern  women  might  more  readily  imitate  the 
ancient  Germans  in  every  point  than  in  this  ;  of  becoming 
ministers  of  the  art  of  healing,  and  so  the  midwives  of  the 
future  world.  If  I  were  a  physician,  or  an  important 
teacher  in  a  girls'  school,  I  should  consider  it  my  most 
useful  work  to  prepare  a  medical  '  Theory  of  Doubts  *  for 
women ;  I  would  therein  merely  ask  questions,  give  a 
hundred  answers  to  each,  and  then  ask  them  to  choose.  I 
would,  for  instance,  lay  quite  undecided  before  them  the 
theory  of  fever  in  all  its  infinite  variety,  yes,  and  even 
the  thousand  causes  of  headache,  the  intermixture  of 
which  so  much  increases  it.  Whosoever,  even  in  the 
cradle,  gave  attention  to  the  science  of  medicine — a  science 
in  which,  more  than  in  any  other,  genius  and  learning 
should  form  one  indivisible   compound  being — would  b© 

*  In  Home's  '  History  of  Mankind,'  p.  384,  is  the  following :  A  party 
of  Highlanders  were  overtaken  by  night,  and  encamped  upon  the 
smooth  snow.  A  somewhat  pampered  youth,  of  good  birth,  wished  to 
make  himself  more  comfortable,  and  rolled  himself  a  small  pillow  out 
of  the  snow.  "  What,"  said  his  father  (Sir  Evan  Cameron),  "  will  you  be 
80  womanish  ?  "  and  kicked  with  his  foot  the  snow  pillow  away  from 
under  his  head. — Ah !  our  ideal  would  be  to  rival  cmly  the  son  of  Sii 
Evan  Cameron, 


APPENDIX.]  LEVANA,  201 

astonished  at  the  boldness  with  which  any  no-doctor,  and 
his  wife  into  the  bargain,  pronounces  on  the  parentage, 
name  and  progeny  of  every  illness.  Good  heavens !  my 
friend,  women  think  they  understand  something,  we  will 
say  the  very  smallest  part,  of  the  most  difficult  of  all 
applied  sciences,  that  which  is  applied  to  the  various 
mental  and  physical  nature  united  undistinguishably  in 
one  organisation  ;  whereas  whole  cities  would  thank  God 
if  there  were  to  be  had  in  each  of  them  but  one  graduated 
man,  universal  doctor,  medical  counsellor,  and  first 
physician,  who  would  assist  you  less  to  heaven  than  to 
your  legs  again;  and  would  not,  as  if  he  were  a  pope, 
regard  every  pilgrim  on  this  earth  as  a  pilgrim  of  the 
cross,  whom  he  had  to  send  forth  to  win  a  consecrated 
grave  (if  he  deserved  one).  The  best  physician  is  a  prize 
in  the  lottery ;  the  best  medicine  from  him  is  a  prize  in 
the  lottery.  And  yet  every  woman  considers  herself  to  be 
both  lotto  and  lottery ;  at  once  both  the  groat  prize,  and 
that  fifth  in  order ! 

Whence  comes  this  absurd  pretension  to  the  art  of 
healing  among  women  and — let  us  include  ourselves — 
among  other  human  beings,  myself  for  instance  (whose 
whole  letter  proves  it)  and  among  men  of  former  ages,  as 
the  old  Latin  proverb  testifies*,  and  Eulenspiegel  also, 
to  whom  every  passer-by  prescribed  a  cure  for  his  tooth- 
ache? This  folly  proceeds  from  a  hundred  causes;  for 
instance,  from  the  confusion  of  the  science  of  medicine 
and  the  art  of  surgery;  from  the  differences  among 
physicians ;  from  anxiety  and  affection,  &c.  &c. — but,  I 
believe,  chiefly  from  trust  in  the  proposition  of  a  sufficient 
reason.  Man,  a  cause-seeking  animal  as  well  as  one  of 
mere  habit, — however  modestly  he  may  listen  to  all 
scientific  things  which  end  in  history  or  mere  information, 
to  all  histories  of  the  world  or  of  nature,  to  information 
about  measurement,  coining,  language,  arms,  antiquity, 
history, — this  man  cannot  restrain  his  power  and  insight 
when  any  scientific  theory  is  presented  to  him,  whether 
it  be  of  the  subject  in  hand,  of  nature,  of  morals,  of  taste, 

♦  Fingunt  se  medicos  quivis  idiota,  sacj-idcg.  Judrous,  monaf'hiia, 
histrio,  rasor,  anus — i.e.  Every  laviimn  funcies  hiiiiBe.f  a  physician—* 
priest,  jew,  monk,  jack-pudding,  barber,  and  dame. 


202  JEAN   PAUL    FEIEDRICH   RICHTER.       [FKAG.  Ilf. 

of  sickness.  The  peasant  gives  his  opinion  about  the 
causes  of  the  world,  of  a  thunder  storm,  of  sin,  of  a  per- 
formance on  the  organ,  of  bodily  j^ain ;  for  in  all  these 
cases  he  draws  his  theory  entirely  out  of  himself. 

If  women  particularly  desire  to  cure  something,  I 
would  propose  to  them  besides  souls, — for  which  they 
would  be  better  soul-curesses  than  the  soul-curei  s  are — 
wounds ;  as  in  some  Spanish  provinces  women  remove  the 
beard,  so  should  they  also  legs  and  arms;  their  hands, 
so  gentle,  tender  and  apt,  their  keener  survey  of  what 
is  actually  before  them,  and  their  compassionate  hearts 
would  certainly  as  sweetly  heal  common  wounds  as  they 
make  those  of  the  heart.  Many  a  soldier,  if  the  female 
surgeon  of  his  regiment  were  pretty,  would  boldly  expose 
himself  to  wounds  were  it  only  to  have  them  bound  by 
her,  or  suffer  his  arm  to  be  amputated  by  her  in  order  to 
give  her  his  hand.  The  blood-fearing  eye  of  women  would 
become  sufficiently  hardened,  though  not  so  flinty,  as  that 
of  men  ;  as  the  Parisian  fish- women  prove  by  wounds  and 
blows.  Moreover,  at  this  present  time  the  whole  world  is 
forming  hardening-schools  for  the  feelings, — I  mean  wars. 

I  will  only  add  a  page  or  two  to  my  over-lengthy  epistle 
and  then  break  off.  Although  every  mother  plays  the 
doctor,  she  yet  constantly  requires  one  for  the  child.  Then 
she  wants  very  many  remedies,  in  order  to  try  each  only 
once,  and  so,  in  consequence,  not  at  the  wrong  time.  Then 
she  requires  many  doctors,  in  order  to  hear  and  to  say  much. 
And  many  even  think  to  instigate  the  doctor  to  a  more 
active  campaign  against  the  malady  by  representing  it  as 
worse  than  it  is,  and  concealing  the  favourable  symptoms  : 
as  if  a  person  should  try  to  rescue  himself  from  the  danger 
of  drowning  by  screaming  fire,  or  from  fire  by  the  distress 
signals  in  use  at  sea. 

Meanwhile,  as  no  woman's  mind  will  suffer  itself  to  be 
deprived  of  a  physicking  finger  along  with  the  doctor's 
ring,  nor  of  its  brains  as  well  as  the  doctor's  hat,  a  man 
might,  myself  for  instance,  remove  the  chief  danger  of 
a  domestic  practice  of  medicine  for  the  family  circle  by  a 
lew  general  rules,  such,  perhaps,  as  the  following : — Grant 
in  general,  for  instance,  that  most  illnesses  are  asthenic 
or  weakening — according  to  Brown  above  eight-ninths, 
to  Schmidt  the  full  nine-ninths;  now,   the  younger  the 


APPENDIX.]  LEVANA.  203 

children  are  the  more  asthenic  are  tney,  and  so  more  likely 
to  die  from  sudden  loss  of  strength  than  from  sudden  over- 
stimulants  ;  wherefore,  in  every  case  you  may  prescribe 
strengthening  domestic  remedies,  that  is  to  say  nourish- 
ment,  a  tonic  of  the  least  injurious  kind. 

The  heat  of  fever  can  only  be  allayed  by  what  the  child 
himself  fancies  ;  and  still  less  must  it  be  strengthened  by 
medicines  instead  of  nourishment ;  and  least  of  all  by  food 
instead  of  drink.  A  few  words  on  this  point  ma}^  be  allowed 
even  to  the  laity ;  the  superior  excellence  of  a  glass  of 
wine  to  all  glasses  of  medicine  in  cases  of  weakness  is  seen 
in  grown-up  people,  in  whom,  after  all  apothecary's 
essences,  the  electric  spark  of  life  has  frequently  been  re- 
kindled by  one  strengthening  bottle  of  T\ane, — of  this  I 
have  experienced  strangely  decisive  instances.  And  many 
things  might  easily  be  added  to  this;  wine  has  the  advan- 
tage of  a  Aonger,  slower,  and  more  constant  influence  ; 
whereas  the  tonics  of  the  apothecary  assume  the  name  of 
aquavitae  and  act  like  earthquakes,  that  is  to  say,  by  small 
doses  and  long  intervals. 

I  will  give  yet  one  other  piece  of  good  advice,  the  very 
best,  to  women;  that  is,  when  a  child  is  really  ill  to  do 
nothing  whatever — es])ecially  nothing  new — not  to  change 
a  moderate  temperature — to  give  him  what  he  wishes  to 
eat  or  drink — to  say  nothing  if  he  fast  for  a  few  days — and 
to  avoid  all  domestic  recipes.  A  mistake  in  a  domestic 
remedy,  giving  wine,  for  instance,  instead  of  vinegar ;  or, 
in  an  opposite  case,  fruit  instead  of  eggs,  may  just  as  easily 
be  the  cause  of  death  as  a  mistake  in  a  prescription.  The 
only  thing  I  would  further  recommend  to  the  mother  is 
Dr.  Kilian's  excellent '  Home  and  Travelling  Physician,* — 
and  that,  not  that  she  may  attem.pt  to  cure  by  it,  but 
that,  after  a  physician  has  named  the  complaint,  she  may 
nse  a  treatment  in  accordance  with  it.  For  the  husband  I 
should  recommend  Kilian's  '  Clinical  Handbook,'  a  new 
edition  of  the  former  work,  enlarged  and  enriched  with 
receipts.  Both  books  will  be  sent  for  your  perusal  by  the 
next  carrier. 

The  gymnastic  instruction  of  your  Paul  shall  be  discussed 
another  time,  in  some  six  or  seven  years,  when  he  shall  be 
bom  and  have  attained  that  ago.  In  any  case  I  would,  at 
least,  let  my  own  children,  for  weeks  together,  climb,  leap, 


204  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   RICHTER.       [FRAG.  III. 

swim,  run  races,  play  at  ball  and  nine  pins ;  but  I  would 
also  just  as  soon,  for  weeks  together,  let  them  dig  like  a 
burrowing  mole,  or  be  kept  quiet  like  a  person  recovering 
from  scarlet  fever ;  and  this  not  that  they  become  well, 
but  may  continue  well,  and  in  a  century  given  more  to 
Bitting  than  to  speaking,  may  bring  with  them  so  much 
sitting  faculty  that  they  may  not  suffer  penance  on  their 
bench  every  session.  At  least,  I  would  exercise  the  strong 
in  sitting  as  much  as  the  weak  in  exercise.  I  would  also 
rather  6et  them  to  hard  bodily  labour  in  the  evening  than 
in  the  morning,  and  so  cause  physical  exertion  to  follow, 
not  precede,  mental.  Sitting  and  thinking  after  violent 
exercise  is  not  nearly  so  healthy  or  agreeable  as  the 
reverse.  Active  exercise  in  the  morning,  as  an  excite- 
ment to  the  sluggish  early  pulse,  along  with  the  greater 
excitability  experienced  at  that  time,  will  frequently 
exhaust  for  the  whole  day.  The  leaps  which  boys  practise 
on  their  way  from  school  show  the  bent  of  nature.  In 
spite  of  all  these  reasons  I  would  yet  do  the  opposite — not 
always,  but  yet  occasionally,  in  order  to  inure  the  body  to  it. 
I  will  now  close  my  letter,  which  consists  almost  en- 
tirely of  postscripts  because  I  constantly  intended  to 
conclude  and  always  went  on.  Fare  you  well,  and  your 
wife  still  better.  J.  P.  F.  E. 

P.S.  If  you  should  have  purchased  Dr.  Marshall's 
*  Instructions  for  the  care  of  Mothers,  Children,  &c.  &c.,  in 
their  peculiar  illnesses,'  third  edition,  two  parts — be 
somewhat  mistrustful  and  disobedient  with  regard  to  his 
instructions;  or  at  least,  let  them  be  first  filtered  and 
refined  by  some  Brownian  physician.  When,  for  instance, 
he  orders  a  lying-in  woman  to  have  nothing  during  the 
first  nine  days  but  sour  fruit,  saltpetre  and  other  weaken- 
ing diets,  he  does  just  the  same  as  if  one  were  to  lay 
a  person  apparently  frozen  to  death,  who  can  only  be 
recovered  by  very  gradual  application  of  warmth  begin- 
ning at  the  lowest  possible  degree,  in  an  ice-house  for  a 
few  days  in  order  that  he  might  recover  gradually  from 
the  cold.  Certainly  he  would  do  so  slowly  enough  as  he 
would  scarcely  become  warm  before  the  resurrection. 


V 


(     205     ) 


COMIC  APPENDIX  AND  EPILOGUE  TO  THE 
FIEST   VOLUME. 

A    DREAMED   LETTER   TO   THE   LATE   PROFESSOR   GELLERT,  JN 
WHICH   THE  AUTHOR   BEGS   FOR   A   TUTOR. 

Suffer  a  dreamed  letter  to  find  its  place  here,  for  the 
recreation  both  of  reader  and  writer.  Few  men  have 
experienced  so  rational  a  kind  of  dreaming  as  I  have 
done ; — whereof  more  shall  be  said  at  some  future  time  in 
a  revision  of  my  treatises :  others  must  treasure  up  their 
rational  waking  thoughts.  I  was  obliged,  when  awake, 
to  help  out  this  dream,  even  with  some  changes  in  its 
order,  so  that  it  might — by  the  system  of  opposite  ends 
and  aims,  as  well  as  of  memory  and  oblivion — really 
appear  what  it  is.  For  the  rest,  I  hope  I  paid  it  sufficient 
heed;  for,  as  soon  as  it  was  over,  I  employed  the  well- 
known  art  of  recalling  dreams  by  shutting  the  eyes  and 
keeping  every  limb  motionless.  Unfortunately  all  the 
fancies  or  foundlings  of  a  dream — the  enfana  perdus  of  the 
imagination,  all  the  more  truly  because  they  usually  carry 
us  back  to  the  days  of  our  childhood,  and  so  form  a  limhus 
infantum — have  this  great  fault,  that  they  shine  brilliantly 
until  we  awake,  but  then  little  or  nothing  of  them  is  to 
be  found.  At  least,  such  is  my  case ;  and  I  hope  the 
reader  consents.  . 

"  Excellent  departed  Gellert !  I  want  a  tutor  for  my  son 
Max :  for(l  am  at  present  engaged  in  writing  on  educa-  \ 
tion,  and  consequently  have  not  a  spare  minute  to  devote  | 
to  the  practice  of  it ;  just  as  Montesquieu  found  himself 
obliged  to  resi-^n  the  office  of  president  to  devote  himself 
to  the '  Spirit  of  Laws.'  Since  at  every  university  there  are 
pedagogic  engrossers  and  purveyors,  and  fewer  subjects 
of  instruction  than  accomplished  instructors ;  and  since, 
moreover,  you,  before  your  decease,  exercised  the  patron'6 
right  of  appointing    tutcirs.  I   did  not  know   why  you 


206         JEAN   PAUL  FRIEDRICH   RICHTER.      [APPEND.  TO 

should  not  proceed  in  it  still  better  now,  not  merely 
because  you  have  marched  forward  with  time,  but  also 
with  eternity.  In  the  extended  acquaintance  your  im- 
mortal part  must  have  formed  on  many  planets — for  aa 
virtue  in  futurity  is  the  reward  of  virtue,  so  also  heavenly 
authorship  will  be  the  reward  of  earthly — you  cannot 
fail  to  have  ample  choice  of  people  and  candidates  in  out 
system.  Only  you  must  not  propose  to  me  any  tricked 
out,  spurred  dweller  in  Leipsig,  of  your  time,  clothed 
throughout  in  beautifying  cement ;  no,  not  even  the  late 
Gellert  himself  (except  as  far  as  regards  his  loving 
gentleness  and  naive  cheerfulness)  :  I  want  a  very  hard 
material — mind.  There  are,  unavoidably,  so  many  born 
harlequins,  shall  we  also  make  educated  ones,  or  both 
together;  stamped  pinchbeck  pieces,  crawling,  cringing, 
worms  ? 

"  Heavens !  how  is  it  that  I  always  find  something  good 
in  books  on  education,  and  so  seldom  anything  of  it  in 
teachers  ?  What  have  I  not  seen  of  these  last,  Gellert, 
and  yet  may  see  in  any  town  I  please  ?  I  do  not  (because 
I  will  n<)t)«think  of  those  peevish  creatures  full  of  child- 
hate,  those  living  aversions  to  little  ones — for  manly 
justice  makes  even  a  false  sj^stem  of  education  good ;  and, 
to  give  an  instance,  nothing  is  so  dangerous  in  icebergs  as 
the  clefts  or  chasms — but  of  those  sickly-sweet,  honey- 
dewed,  sugar-of-lead  perpetual  teachers,  who  would  con- 
secrate every  thing  for  the  young,  even  the  swaddling 
clothes,  as  a  pope  does  those  actually  used.  Oh !  I  perfectly 
understand  that  tutor  :  after  every  step  and  every  leap  of 
the  young  creature  he  will  sow  something  ;  and,  moreover 
be  most  anxious  to  know  whether  the  mental  cherry-stones, 
which  he  has  brought  him  enveloped  in  their  sweet 
covering,  will  grow  and  take  root  in  his  stomach  as  he 
hopes;  or,  to  use  another  different  living  metaphor, 
whether  the  frog's  eggs  he  has  given  him  in  a  draught 
of  pond  water  are  developing  themselves.  In  j)hysical 
matters,  says  he,  the  same  thing  is  commoner  but  in- 
lurious,  and  then  he  shortly  alludes  to  the  lessons  in  which 
he  also  teaches  it. 

"  The  tutor  stands  up  for  the  U  without  which  the 
child's  Q  cannot  be  pronounced.    '  Let  my  sermon  precede 


FIRST  VOL.J  LEVANA.  207 

every  action,'  says  he,  *  the  man,  forsooth,  must  strengthen 
with  many  reasons  every  childish  action  of  the  child,  and 
shave  it  with  a  scythe.' 

"  He  who  has  seen  such  a  man  frequently,  though  not 
everywhere,  has  learned  much.  In  China  there  is  a  law- 
book, and  interpreters  of  it  too,  to  teach  the  best  method 
of  drinking  tea  genteelly.  But  the  above-mentioned  man 
would  wish  the  thing  to  be  done  improperly  and  properly 
also;  because,  indeed,  he  finds  a  very  great  want  of  direc- 
tions for  children  how  to  take  coffee,  tea,  tobacco,  stones — for 
throwing ;  hands — for  kissing  ;  and  cakes — for  stealing. 
It  is  the  same  man  who  chalks  up  the  Ten  Commandments 
on  the  study  door,  as  on  a  pillar  of  remembrance,  so  that 
the  young  may  always  have  them  before  their  eyes — which 
is  precisely  the  best  means  of  never  seeing  them.  Most 
parental  and  tutoral  commands  resemble  the  inscription 
one  sees  on  eome  doors — of  '  shut  the  door '  which  cannot 
be  read  if  he  have  left  the  door  open. 

*'  Observe  from  above  a  tutor  who  chains  himself  to  his 
prisoners  ;  who  permits  himself  to  be  adopted  as  spiritual 
father — which  the  real  father  ought  to  be,  since  we  can 
indeed  give  instruction  to  a  stranger's  child  but  education 
only  to  our  own,  because  the  one  may  know  cessation,  the 
other  must  proceed  without  interruption — observe  him  and 
he  must  appear  to  you  (even  without  the  bird's  eye  per- 
spective of  another  world)  less  in  that  serious  light  which 
is  usual  above  than  in  a  very  different  one ;  when,  for 
instance,  you  see  him  take  a  walk  with  his  auditory  of 
slaves,  endeavouring  to  turn  every  hill,  and  stream,  and 
knot  of  people  (in  themselves  nothing)  into  a  medium  of 
imparting  instruction  to  his  slaves.  For  as  long  as  the 
child  is  awake  he  cea«es  not  to  develop  him;  although, 
perhaps,  his  dreams  develop  him  much  better.  If  every 
eastern  pearl  costs  the  life  of  a  fJave,  evciy  western  pupil 
costs  a  teacher,  and  something  more.  The  teacher,  who 
cannot  live  to  himself,  suffers  his  pupil  as  little  life  to 
himself;  and  so  they  mutually  impart  to  each  other  sins 
of  weakness;  somewhat  as  the  new  and  the  old  world 
imparted  to  each  other  a  new  di>ease,  that  of  the  double 
gmall-pox. 

"To    speak   in   figures,  departed    friend,   tutors   and 


208  JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRICH  RICHTEE.     [APPEND.  TO 

beggars  mutilate  children  in  order  to  feed  themselves  i 
only  thie  former  expose  the  distortions  as  curved  lines  of 
beauty,  the  latter  as  holes  and  chinks  in  their  living  alms* 
boxes. 

"  Or  by  their  long  polishing  of  the  child  they  rub  off  its 
pure  form;  like  those  glass  dishes  in  which  curious 
specimens  of  glass  are  so  laboriously  piled  that  at  last 
their  original  depth  is  positively  diminished. 

"  But  should  this  be,  excellent  immortal  ?  Must  my  good 
Max,  whose  eye  and  hand  aim  at  power,  fall  down  so 
weakened  and  weary  ?  Must,  in  short,  a  boy  of  the 
nineteenth  century  be  blown  out  by  his  tutor  so  thin,  and 
tender,  and  brittle,  that  he — like  the  man  recorded  by 
Lusitanus,  who  thought  his  seat  was  made  of  glass  and 
therefore  always  remained  on  his  legs  —  must  regard 
everything  about  him  as  moral,  aesthetic,  intellectual  glass, 
and  so  not  venture  to  sit,  to  stand,  or  to  lie — nay,  not 
even  to  be  ?  As  was  said  above,  dear  friend,  I  chose  to  say 
this  in  a  somewhat  figurative  style,  because  I  wished  to 
tread  in  your  footsteps.  But,  like  all  imitators  (I  know 
that  too  well)  I  must  retire  with  a  longer  nose  and  not 
much  shorter  ears ;  for  your  present  figurative  style 
(since  in  heaven  or  Uranus  you  are  near  the  greatest 
objects  and  worlds — Jupiter  and  Hell — and  have  them  to 
inspire  you)  must  be  totally  different  from  any  other,  even 
you  own  mortal  style,  from  which  doubtless  it  is  dis- 
tinguished by  bold  oriental  imagery;  and  you  will  say, 
even  Gellert,  naturalised  in  heaven,  writes  in  some  degree 
more  wittily  and  instructively,  and  no  one  there  speaks 
dully. — For  the  rest  I  know  perfectly  well,  even  to  your 
very  phrases,  the  objections  you  will  make  to  me  against 
the  influence  of  tutoral  glazing.  For  you  will  find  an 
anecdote  which  you  have  read  in  Marville*  applicable  to 
the  point.  As  an  instance  how  accurately  I  can  guess,  I 
will  myself  relate  it  to  you.  '  A  young  gentleman,  a 
preacher,  with  fine  action,  voice  and  so  forth,  mounted  the 
pulpit  and  began  his  sermon  ;  but  lo  !  he  had  forgotten  it, 
and  knew,  even  less  than  before,  what  he  had  to  say. 
However,  he  composed  himself,  raised  his  voice  (and 
himself  too,  as  he  hoped  by  the  action)  and  proclaimed  to 

*  Melange  d'histoire  de  Vie;neuel-Marville. 


FIRST  VOL.]  LEVANA.  209 

his  audience,  with  rare  energy,  one  conjunction  after 
another — enfin,  car,  done,  si,  or — and  muttered  with  falling 
voice  all  kind  of  inaudible  matter  between  the  particles. 
The  poorer  parishioners  were  excited  and  in  the  highest 
degree  attentive,  yet  without  being  able  to  understand 
much ;  and  so  they,  naturally  and  reasonably,  attributed 
their  not  hearing  to  the  distance  of  their  sittings  from  the 
pulpit,  which  one  part  of  the  congregation  supposed  too 
far  off,  and  the  other  too  near.  And  so  this  soul-curer, 
with  his  connecting,  passionate  and  apostrophising  words, 
preached  about  three-quarters  of  an  hour,  throwing  himself 
and  the  pew  occupiers  into  a  fever  and  perspiration ;  then 
pronounced  the  Amen,  and  descended  from  the  pulpit 
with  the  reputation  of  a  true  pulpit  orator.  The  whole 
body  of  hearers  resolved  next  time  to  choose  their  seats 
better ;  some  to  sit  nearer,  some  farther  off,  so  as  not  to 
lose  a  syllable.' 

"  Now  what  else  do  most  teachers  preach  to  children, 
and  philosophers  to  the  sons  of  muses  and  their  readers, 
than  a  few  thousand  «w,  doncSy  cars,  without  any  rational 
word  attached? 

"  What  else  are  most  lessons  to  children — as  most  men's 
conversations  to  women — than  customary  marks  to  pay  no 
attention  ? 

"  You  now  know  what  kind  of  a  spiritual  father  I,  the 
physical  father,  wish  to  adopt  for  my  child.  Naturally  I 
only  speak  of  the  tutor's  soul.  His  body  may  just  as  well 
be  kneaded  out  of  the  earth  of  Uranus,  Saturn,  the  moon 
or  the  sun,  as  out  of  the  earth  of  this  world.  As  to  the 
soul,  I  wish  that  you  would  select  such  from  among  the 
candidates  out  of  the  present  ten  planets  as  you  did 
formerly  from  those  out  of  the  ten  German  circles — which 
circles,  dear  Gellert,  since  your  removal,  have  almost 
undergone  ten  persecutions  of  the  Christians  and  meta- 
morphoses of  Vishnu—  and  then,  out  of  this  selection  from 
the  planets,  choose  one  for  me.  You  will  spare  me  a 
subject  out  of  the  leaden,  dull  and  heavy,  selfish  Saturn ; 
who,  with  all  his  breadth  of  rings  and  abundance  of  moons, 
has  wearisomely  long  years  and  gives  a  bad  light ;  as  well 
as  a  spring  beetle  out  of  that  merry  lancer  round  the  sun. 
Mercury,  the  domestic  Frenchman  cf  the  solar  system, 

I.  p 


210  JEAN   PAUL  FEIEDRICH  RICHTER.     [APPEND.  TO 

who  always  intoxicates  himself  in  the  sunshine  and  yet, 
when  he  really  comes  before  the  sun,  only  looks  like  a 
black  spot.  Excellent  professor,  you  now  know  every- 
thing, and  many  things  much  earlier  than  we  do;  of 
which  I  only  name  to  you  Pallas,  Ceres,  Juno,  and 
the  planets  discoverable  in  future.  I  will  have  no  in- 
structor out  of  Pallas — a  morsel  broken  from  the  earth, 
and,  moreover,  at  such  a  distance,  for  light  and  heat 
irom  the  sun  Apollo ;  I  purposely  mention  this  dwarf 
jplanet  because  your  preference  for  Athens,  whose  pro- 
tecting deity  Pallas  was,  might  perhaps  influence  yon. 
You  must  be  partial  to  nothing  but  the  next  world,  and 
my  first  child. 

"  In  one  word,  I  do  not  know  any  distinguished  star  from 
which  I  would  select  my  tutor  but  the  morning  and 
evening  star ;  and  so  let  it  be,  Gellert !  Much  might  be 
said  about  that  star — its  double  name,  indeed,  says  two 
things — moreover  it  is  named  after  the  goddess  of  beauty ; 
also  after  a  certain  light-bearer  (Lucifer)  not  light-destroyer 
— especially  the  star  possesses  this  excellent  quality  (and 
many  others)  that  it  occupies  a  very  perfect  position  in  the 
heaven,  neither  too  far  from  the  sun,  nor  too  near  the 
earth  ;  and  that  (for  children)  it  does  not  so  strikingly  wax 
and  wane  as  the  nearer  moon.  In  short  I  consider  Venus 
to  be  the  best  nurse.  And  so,  I  beg  my  tutor  may  come 
from  Hesperus. 

"  For  your  son  of  JHesperus  will  certainly,  I  imagine, 
deal  excellently  with  my  child.  He  will — since  liberality 
is  in  every  case  inestimable,  and  why  not  then  in  education 
in  the  first  place— treat  him  with  practical  freedom  and 
power,  and  not  deprive  him  of  his  own.  He  will  find  little 
fault  with  what  is  childish.  Quickly  and  perfectly  appre- 
hending what  is  outward,  what  inward,  he  will  in  no  case 
make  many  words  and  vast  preparations ;  will  draw  him 
on  to  what  is  great  and  universal,  not  to  what  is  insigni- 
ficant ;  will  rather  be  the  physician  to  his  weakness,  than 
the  extinguisher  of  his  strength.  He  will  above  all  lend 
his  aid  to  the  child  of  earth  ;  and  shine  before  and  be- 
hin-^.  him  as  his  starry  dwelling,  Hesperus,  does  for  the 
earth,  and  that  only  when  the  sun  has  not  yet  risen,  or 
is  already  set ;  it  is  certain  that  so  wise  a  Hesperid  will 


FIRST  VOL.  J  LEVANA.  211 

not  attempt  to  help  tlie  sun  in  the  day  time ;  I  know  him 
too  well  to  suppose  it  possible. 

"  Even  in  physical  matters  he  will  not,  with  womanish 
anxiety,  be  perpetually  fearful  lest  the  child  should  break 
his  leg  against  every  twig — though,  indeed,  the  breaking 
of  a  leg  is  better  than  the  dread  of  it ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  children  are  themselves  careful,  owing  to  the  novelty 
of  all  their  experiments  and  the  natural  magnifying  of  a 
place  where  they  may  fall,  caused  by  the  shortness  of  their 
own  bodies — or  lest  he  should  be  poisoned  by  tin  soldiers 
and  children's  trumpets ;  or  hurt  by  a  rocking-horse ; 
or  spoiled  by  wearing  trowsers.  He  who  is  so  fearful  for 
others  may  himself  be  suspected  of  fear ;  and  a  coward 
makes  a  coward,  as  a  hermit  does  a  hermit.  Our  ancestors, 
old  Gellert,  grew  up  sufficiently  strong  and  modest  with 
all  their  trowsers,  feather  beds,  saddles  and  spices. 

"  It  would  on  another  account  be  particularly  agreeable 
to  me  that  you  choose  my  tutor  out  of  Venus ;  because 
there,  according  to  the  best  telescopes  and  astronomers, 
may  be  found  the  loftiest  mountains,  compared  with  which 
our  Chimborazzo  were  but  a  mole-hill — and  so  the  purest 
mountain  air  is  near  the  hottest  sultriness  of  the  valley ; 
(I  can  readily  picture  to  myself  the  heat  of  Lucifer  or 
Venus).  What  a  powerful,  manly  Alpine  breast,  joined  tc 
an  Italy  in  the  heart,  must  the  inhabitant  of  Phosphorus 
bring  to  me  at  Baireuth,  in  the  capacity  of  a  right  carefully 
Relected  tutor ;  who  must  resemble  a  general  full  of  con- 
trasting powers,  of  irrevocable  strictness  and  order,  sincere 
friendship,  good  fellowship,  and  persuasiveness. 

"  I  am  convinced  my  tutor  will  understand  me  when  I 
say,  that  as  the  man  can  do  without  the  scholar,  but  not 
the  scho'ar  without  the  man,  I  pray  you  above  all  things 
to  ingraft  the  scholar  upon  the  man,  but  not  the  reverse. 
Our  nineteenth  century,  (I  might  thus  speak  to  him  more 
distinctly  in  the  evening  under  the  warm  rain  of  punch,) 
whatever  century  you  may  reckon  on  your  little  planet, 
will  not  be  the  best,  at  least  not  the  strongest,  although  it 
may,  like  yours,  deserve  the  names  of  Phosphorus  and 
Lucifer.  What  we  magnify  ourselves  about  is  the  French 
Revolution  ;  or  the  changes  of  something  little.  The 
■tones  which  the  giants  formerly  hurled  became  islands ; 

p  2 


(. 


212  JEAN  PAUL   FEIEDRICH  EICHTER.     [APPEND.  TO 

now,  wlien  islands  are  hurled,  there  come  but  stones,  tomb- 
stones and  grindstones.  The  Eevolution,  like  an  earth- 
quake, put  some  motion  into  the  skeletons  of  a  chamel 
house.  Tutors,  like  the  anatomist  Walther  in  Berlin,  seek 
their  glory  in  preparing  skeletons  by  removing  the  flesh, 
and  then  bleaching  them.  Brother-dwellers  on  Venus,  or 
rather  on  this  earth,  could  you  think  so  ?  Then  should  I 
repent  wiiting  to  Gellert !  To  impart  strength,  and  to 
leave  strength  will,  I  hope,  be  your  first  and  last  words  in 
education.  What  is  educated  for  the  age  will  be  worse 
than  the  age.  The  Hesperid  answers  me :  *  In  the 
springtime  of  childhood,  fathers  often  look  forward  as  far 
as  the  distant  snow-white  mountain  peaks,  and  point  out 
the  winter  to  the  spring.  Far  better  the  wind-fall  of  a 
Bpring  storm,  than  the  snow-fall  of  age.'  As  true  as 
beautiful,  candidate !  I  reply.  Lavoisier  made  an  instru- 
ment of  ice  into  a  calorimetre,  or  measurer  of  heat ;  thus 
fire  is  often  measured  by  ice ;  the  boy  by  the  grey-headed 
man. 

"  The  candidate  will  animadvert  on  much  in  the  con- 
versational style  of  his  paymaster;  but  I  go  on  little 
afi'ected  by  his  remarks ;  '  Howsoever  I  may  express 
myself,  it  is  certain  that  the  artistic,  compound-fractured 
style,  into  which  writing  masters  and  tutors  would  break 
the  souls  of  their  pupils,  like  letters,  is  in  nothing  dif- 
ferent from  the  compound  fractures  of  surgeons,  except  in 
the  case  of  wit,  which  truly  requires  variety  in  order  to 
find  without  restraint  distant  resemblances.'  The  candi- 
date replies :  '  If  only  to  the  innate  energy  of  a  child  the 
sap  of  life  and  room  for  its  development  be  afibrded,  there 
will  be  no  need  to  graft  on  every  branch,  to  cut  the 
leaves,  or  paint  the  flowers;  one  must,  like  a  king, 
direct  the  whole,  but  not  interfere  with  the  individual 
parts.' 

"  I  exclaim,  '  You  are  the  man  for  me,  (if  not,  indeed, 
more  than  a  man  !)  If  the  tutor's  situations  which  I 
once  filled  were  yet  vacant  you  should  be  my  vicar  in 
them — but  you  shall  be  so  in  the  last,  in  the  one  I 
overlook  and  present  to  as  father  and  patron.  The  easy 
conditions  need  scarcely  be  mentioned.  You  are  not  to 
torment  the  child  with  a  thousand  languages — for  merely  to 


PmST  VOL.]  LEV  ANA.  213 

learn  languages  is  to  throw  away  one's  money  in  buying 
beautiful  purses,  or  to  learn  the  Lord's  Prayer  in  all  lan- 
guages without  ever  praying  it.' 

"  '  I  agree,  with  all  my  heart ! '  said  he  boldly.  '  So 
you  will  only  teach  him  French,  English,  Spanish,  Italian ; 
— Greek,  Latin,  and  German,  of  course — but  the  last  most 
thoroughly.  As  regards  the  sciences,  the  child  will  bo 
fed  by  you,  as  its  young  are  by  the  house  swallow,  only 
on  the  wing — not  attached  to  any  long  appointment  of  the 
hours  of  study.' 

"  '  You  know  the  human  heart,  and  show  a  most  beauti- 
ful one,'  interrupted  he,  and  drank.  '  But  when  your  usual 
eight  hours  of  study  are  over,  and  the  child  or  you  testify 
any  further  desire  of  study,  you  may,  without  hesitation, 
take  as  much  from  the  second  or  from  the  last  third  of 
the  day  as  you  choose,  and  teach  during  the  whole  of  it. 
Now  in  what  appertains  to  science  itself  (for  the  art'^  of 
dancing,  fencing,  swimming,  riding,  leaping,  singing, 
playing  on  the  violin,  the  horn,  and  the  piano,  will  be 
recreations  for  both  of  you),  it  will  satisfy  me  if  the  poor 
child  only  learn  history — namely,  as  much  of  the  past  as 
is  already  gone ;  and  also  I  would  wish  that,  along  with 
the  most  recent,  a  little  of  the  piquante  future  should  be 
insinuated,  together  with  other  not  less  necessary  histories: 
those  of  nature,  of  books,  of  heretics,  of  gods,  of  church 
history,  &c. — in  the  same  way  a  few  of  the  most  necessary 
branches  of  knowledge — knowledge  of  the  stars,  of  coins, 
of  antiquity,  of  heraldry,  &c. ;  and  the  doctrines  of  natural 
science,  of  jurisprudence,  of  medicine,  of  nobility,  of 
morality,  &c. ;  and  the  descriptions — as  descriptions  of 
the  earth,  &c.,  a  few  tea,  as  aesthetics,  dietetics,  phello- 
plastics,  (fee. ;  for,  say  I  perpetually,  why  the  devil  should 
a  poor,  unbearded,  thin-skulled  child  be  immeasurably 
laden  with  learned  fat  and  refuse  ?  Why  should  his  life 
be  interwoven,  not  with  fair  white  leaves,  but  with  whole 
fall  books  ?  And  he  himself  become  a  pack  and  baggage- 
bearing  Pegasus  ?     Wherefore  this,  say  I  ? ' 

**  You  have  to  do,  and  can  do,  much ;  for  you  are  a  few 
tliousand  tutors  in  one.  Frequently  I  cannot  at  all 
understand  why  a  whole  regiment  of  tutors  and  gover 
neBSGs  is  not  engaged  at  once ;  especially  when  I  consider 


214    JEAN  PAUL  FKIEDRICH  KICHTEE.  [APPEND.  TO 

how  many  demigods  and  goddesses  the  Eomans  ascribed 
to  children  and  worshipped ;  for  instance,  Nascio,  or  Natio, 
presiding  over  the  birth — Eumina  over  suckling — Edusa 
over  eating — Potina  over  drinking — Levana,  moreover — 
Statilinits  and  Statana  over  the  standing  of  both  sexes — 
l-'abulintts  over  speaking — I  purposely  omit,  from  detesta- 
tion of  prolixity  in  others,  many  half  divinities,  such  as 
Yagitans,  Ossitago,  Nundina,  Paventia,  Carnea.*  Could 
one  so  arrange  it,  and  pay,  one  should  appoint  a  distinct 
teacher  for  almost  every  faculty,  who  should  direct  that 
only  ;  yea,  and  even  teachers  for  the  various  subdivisions 
of  the  same  faculty  were  at  least  pious  wishes.  I  could 
like  (but  nothing  will  come  of  it)  if  I  possessed  that  army 
of  various  teachers,  to  have  a  son  exercised,  say  in  aesthetics, 
according  to  the  different  divisions  of  Krug ;  one  teacher 
instructing  him  in  that  author's  Hypseology,  another  in 
his  Kalleology,  a  third  in  his  Krimatology;  and  so  the 
child  might  at  one  time  have  his  sublime  tutor,  at  another 
his  feeble,  at  another  his  naive.  I  would  also  wish,  dear 
friend,  that,  in  the  virtues,  you  should  prescribe  special 
private  exercises  and  instructions  in  each  virtue,  so  that 
they  might  not  all  run  into  one  another  and  the  poor 
child  stand  there  like  a  stupid  angel,  who  knows  neither 
right  nor  left,  but  only  what  is  right.  If  Franklin 
schooled  and  exercised  himself  each  week  in  a  different 
virtue,  might  not  the  various  Sundays  and  festivals,  which 
as  holydays  can  be  used  for  little  real  instruction,  be  applied 
to  the  inculcation  of  many  virtues?  On  every  festival 
might  'be  taken  a  new  one :  on  three  holydays  the  three 
parts  of  repentance ;  and  on  every  Apostle's  day  some 
fault  might  be  eradicated.  I  can,  indeed,  picture  to 
myself  a  long  feast  of  the  Trinity,  in  which  one  might, 
hour  by  hour,  allow  the  child  to  go  through  all  the  virtues, 
so  that  at  the  prayer-bell  he  might  be  presented  as  a  saint 
of  a  month,  or  holy  image. 

"  Moreover,  so  excellent  a  tutor  for  my  child  might  rest 
assured  that,  were  the  good  Gellert  still  living,  1  would 
with  pleasure,  at  the  end  of  his  engagement  (when  Max 
would  no  longer  require  him)  and  with  all  the  influence 
which  I,  aa  an  author,  might  possess  with  Gellert,  give 
•  Augustine,  de  Civit.  Dei,  i.  4  &  9. 


FIRST  VOL.]  LirVAW.  215 

him  recommendations  to  him,  in  order  that  he  might 
further  recommend  the  young  man ;  and  so  provide  for 
him  according  to  his  merits." 

At  this  point  I  awoke;  wanted  to  know  what  I  had 
dreamed  ;  and  tried  to  recall  it.  But  I  soon  found  that, 
out  of  my  dreamed  letter  to  Gellert — quite  in  accordance 
with  the  mad  order  of  a  dream-;;— I  had  fallen  into  a  new 
conversation  with  a  teacher  who  was  there  sitting  before 
me.  Meanwhile  such  a  conclusion  may  be  in  so  far  good, 
as,  should  I  print  it,  it  will  serve  to  prove  that  I  have 
not,  as  is,  alas !  very  usual,  dreamed  in  sport,  and  for  the 
sake  of  publishing,  but  in  very  deed  and  truth. 


216      JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRICH  RICHTER.   [fRAG.  IV. 


FOURTH  FEAGMENT. 

ON  FEMALE  EDUCATION. 

Chap.  I.  Jacquelina's  Confession  of  her  Education,  §  73 — 75.  Chap, 
II.  Destination  of  Women  less  for  their  Husbands  than  for  theij 
Children,  §  76—78.  Chap.  III.  Nature  of  Women,  Proof  of  their 
predominating  Purity  of  Heart,  §  79 — 86.  Chap.  IV.  Education  of 
Girls  in  regard  to  Reasonableness,  §  87,  88 ;  to  Purity  of  Heart  and 
Love  of  their  own  Sex,  §  89 ;  to  Gentleness,  and  the  Tendency  to 
Female  Passionateness,  §  90 ;  to  Economy  of  Living,  and  Domestic 
Affairs.  §  91—93 ;  to  Knowledge  and  Skill,  §  94,  95 ;  to  Dress, 
Ornament,  &c.,  §  96;  to  Cheerfulness,  §  97;  Education  of  Girla 
endowed  with  Genius,  §  98.  Chap.  V.  Private  Instructions  of  a 
Prince  to  the  head  Governess  of  his  Daughter,  §  9 


CHAPTER  I. 

§  73. 

Under  female  education  I  understand  three  things  at 
once,  which  are  in  themselves  contradictory ;  first,  the 
education  which  women  generally  give;  second,  their 
peculiar  call  to  a  right  education  as  compared  with  men ; 
third,  the  education  of  girls. 

The  first  and  second  would  have  required  an  earlier 
consideration  if  the  characteristics  of  the  female  sex, 
according  to  which  its  education  should  be  regulated, 
were  not  united  in  them  both ;  and,  especially,  if  in  this 
little  experimental  work  it  were  necessary  to  arrange  the 
position  of  its  matter  in  very  strict  order.  A  reader,  to 
whom  so  many  systems  are  presented  must  hold  his  way 
armed  with  a  predetermined  one,  unless  each  is  to  occupy 
his  mind  in  turn. 


CHAP.  I.]  LEVANA.  217 


§  74. 

Ill-educated  and  ill-educating  states,  as  well  as  fathers 
immersed  in  business,  can  only  trust  the  welfare  of  educa- 
tion to  mothers,  as  the  second  chapter  shall  show ;  but 
the  evil  that  mothers  might  obviate  can  be  easily  stated 
in  this  paragraph.  Were  it  in  other  respects  accordant 
with  the  tone  of  this  work,  I  willing;ly  confess  that  I 
would  offer  to  the  world  in  a  merrier  manner  this  little 
register  of  sins,  or  list  of  losses  in  gaming,  and  debts 
of  honour;  and  the  more  so  because,  in  this  very  case, 
a  certain,  otherwise  excellent,  mother  of  five  children, 
Madame  Jacquelina,  luckily  turning  over  the  pages  of  my 
Levana,  offered  to  give  me  an  airy  embodiment  of  it. 
Ladies  love  to  dress,  undress,  and  redress.  For  as  I  had 
known  my  excellent  friend  a  long  time,  much  was  pre- 
pared and  made  easy ;  and  I  could  well  imagine  that  the 
fair  Jacquelina,  as  sister- orator  for  her  whole  sex — though 
without  any  other  commission  to  show  than  her  beauty — 
would  stand  before  my  writing  desk,  as  though  it  were  a 
confessional,  and  declare  she  heartily  desired  to  be  absolved 
by  me ;  only,  for  very  shame's  sake,  it  was  impossible  for 
her  to  make  an  auricular  confession,  but  she  would  take  it 
very  kindly  if  I  would  i  egard  her  as  a  deaf  person — after 
the  fashion  of  former  confessors  who  pronounced  the 
confession  of  their  fair  deaf  and  dumb  penitents  over  them 
— and  80,  as  her  representative  and  spiritual  father,  make 
the  following  confession  for  her : — 

§  75. 

"  Honourable  and  dear  sir ! "  (I  was  thus  to  put  the 
address  to  me  into  her  own  mouth  lest  the  joke  should  be 
continued^  "  I  confess  before  God  and  yourself  that  I  am 
a  poor  peoagogic  sinner,  and  have  broken  many  commands 
of  Kousseau  and  of  Campe.  I  confess  that  I  never  truly 
carried  out  any  one  principle  for  a  month,  but  only  for  an 
hour  or  two ;  that  1  have  often,  half  with  thought,  and 
BO  half  without  thought,  forbidden  my  children  to  do 
something,  without  afterwards  observing  whether  tLey 


218  JEAN   PAUL  FKIEDRICH  RICHTER.     [fRAG.  IV. 

did  it  or  not ;  that  I  never  could  deny  them  anything, 
when  both  they  and  I  were  floating  in  the  midst  of  a  sea 
of  happiness,  which  else  from  calm  reason  I  should  have  at 
once  refused ;  and  that  precisely  at  two  seasons,  the  most 
sunshiny  and  the  most  cloudy,  whether  of  myself  or  of 
the  children,  did  I  spoil  them  most.  Have  I  not  even 
done  still  worse?  Have  I  not,  when  strangers  were 
present,  said  to  my  Bella,  as  well  as  to  my  pet  (I  mean 
by  that  only  my  poodle)  Faites  la  helle  ! 

"  Have  I  not,  at  each  of  our  great  fairs,  given  holy  days 
on  account  of  strangers'  visits,  especially  those  of  eminent 
frequenters  of  the  Mr  to  my  husband,  and  thus  valued  a 
visitor  more  highly  than  five  children ;  so  that  I  very 
little  resembled  that  German  woman,  of  whom  my  husband 
read  in  the  twelfth  volume  of  the  mental  Fama,  who  had 
the  courage  to  decline  dancing  with  two  kings  on  the 
same  evening  because  she  considered  it  to  be  unchristian  ? 
And  during  all  last  year  did  I  not  see  my  two  youngest 
children,  Josephine  and  Peter,  only  once  a  day,  at  break- 
fast, and  that  merely  because  I  wanted  to  finish  a  novel 
and  a  piece  of  worsted- work ;  and,  also,  because  my  noble 
friend,  the  princess,  for  whom  I  was  working  it,  had 
taken  up  her  residence  here  ?  Only  this  consideration 
can  tranquillise  my  conscience,  that  I  took  the  greatest 
trouble  to  procure  a  trustworthy  nurse  for  my  little 
ones,  who  promised  me  to  treat  them  as  a  real  mother ; 
and  may  Heaven  punish  her  if  she  was  ever  inatten- 
tive to  so  dear  a  trust,  or  ever  let  my  precious  lambs 
go  out  of  her  sight  for  a  moment,  or  ever  left  them 
in  the  hands  of  strangers !  Ah,  God !  when  I  think  of 
the  possibility  of  such  a  thing !  But,  alas !  what  do  such 
creatures  know  of  the  anxieties  of  a  tender  mother's 
heart? 

"  At  other  times,  I  have  indeed  (and  that  consoles  me) 
always  allowed  all  my  children  to  come  to  me  twice  a  day, 
after  breakfast  and  after  dinner,  and  have  then  often 
for  hours  fondled  and  taught  them.  But  I  confess  that 
my  impetuosity  would  never  let  me  be  satisfied  to  kiss 
them  in  moderation ;  and  so  I  drew  on  me  my  husband's 
blame,  who  dislikes  that  exceedingly  and  says,  *  Children 
(even  if  not  my  own)  may,  with  the  Princess  of  Conde, 


CHAP.  I.J  LEVANA.  219 

lament  that  their  miBfortune  is  to  be  loved  by  old  people 
— the  holy  seal  of  the  heart,  a  kiss,  is  to  children  an 
empty,  meaningless  thing  ;  p  very  energetic  one  may  even 
be  painful,  and  perhaps  injurious,  to  the  fifth  pair  of 
nerves  in  the  lips — a  gentle  stroking  of  the  head  is 
better,  and  a  gentle  loving  word,  a  kiss  which  they  give, 
and  a  softer  one  which  they  receive.' 

"  I  confess  that,  as  in  the  game  of  forfeits,  when  I 
asked  myself.  What  shall  this  forfeit  (that  of  love) 
which  I  hold  in  my  hand  do  ?  I  always  answered,  Love 
me  immeasurably.  Whereby,  because  I  required  so  many 
marks  of  love,  I  have  made  Josephine  too  sensitive,  Sophia 
hypocritical,  and  Peter  ill-tempered.  After  any  severe 
punishment  I  inflicted  instead  of  allowing  the  whole 
of  my  former  love  to  glow  warmly  on  them,  (a  striking 
change,  which  my  husband  says  is  the  only  means  of 
correcting  and  reconciling  a  child,  during  at  least  the 
first  eight  or  ten  years,)  I  suffered  the  long  cloud  of  after- 
wrath  to  hang  over  them  ;  as  if  their  young  hearts  could 
trace  hidden  love,  or  suffer  for  it  long,  or,  in  the  best  case, 
not  learn  to  imitate  that  sulkiness. 

"  I  confess  that,  though  not  in  the  least  nervous  at 
whatever  may  happen  out  of  the  house,  I  yet  never  could 
be  tranquil  with  my  dear  children,  although  I  knew  that 
the  least  impetuosity,  were  it  even  of  a  hasty  running 
to  their  assistance,  is  injurious,  and  has  a  tendency  to 
produce  a  similar  disposition  in  them.  And  I  confess  that 
I  show  anger  too  soon,  even  towards  my  maid-servants, 
in  spite  of  my  knowing  perfectly  what  my  husband  so 
beautifully  says  that  to  give  way  to  an  angry  expression 
of  countenance,  or  of  voice,  before  even  the  youngest 
children,  is  in  fact  to  teach  them  anger.  For,  as  the 
whole  soul  is  imprisoned  and  moulded  into  the  whole 
body,  it  follows  that  every  mental  is  connected  with  some 
physical  part,  and  thus  these  mutually  excite  each  other 
— ^the  outward  expression  of  passion  produces  the  mental 
emotion,  and  so  of  the  reverse. 

'*  My  husband  asserted  and,  moreover,  carried  out  tho 
principle,  that  a  husband  can  never  so  well  establish  a 
normal  school  for  female  teachers  (like  a  good  wife,  I  use 
his  very  expressions)  as  during  the  first  year  after  mar- 


220  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDEICH   RICHTER        [fRAG.  IV. 

riage ;  in  this  time,  he  thought,  a  wife  might  be  mentally 
enriched  with  every  kind  of  manly  instruction,  which, 
should  she  afterwards  neglect,  she  would  yet  seek  and 
cherish  for  the  love  of  her  first  child,  and  of  him  who  ia 
even  before  the  first,  her  husband ;  for  at  an  after  period, 
continued  he,  somewhat  of  that  glowing  love-service 
towards  the  husband,  and  somewhat,  also,  of  that  anxious 
solicitude  about  the  children,  vanishes;  and  so,  still 
continued  he,  the  education  of  many  children  does  not 
proceed  better,  at  least,  not  more  carefully.  But  I  rejoice 
that  I  have  confuted  him  in  this,  as  in  many  other  things, 
and  that  I  brought  up  my  third  child,  even  while  expect- 
ing the  fourth,  for  several  months  precisely  as  my  wedded 
lord  and  school-master  directed  during  the  school-weeks 
of  the  honeymoon. 

*'  But,  venerable  father,  you  certainly  do  not  know  by 
experience  what  whims  husbands  take  some  nine  or  ten 
months  after  marriage !  Did  not  mine  positively,  seriously 
desire,  that  when  I  occasionally  washed  the  little  thing, 
I  would  not  rub  its  face  and  wipe  it  quickly  up  and 
down ;  because,  said  he,  this  kind  of  violence  is  disagree- 
able to  them  and  excites  their  passion ;  but  that  I  would 
softly  glide  from  above  downwards,  and  then  gently 
round  ?  What  ridiculous  pedantry  I  Surely  a  woman 
must  know  how  to  wash!  So  1  go  on  just  as  usual, 
and  care  not  how  loudly  both  little  and  big  cry  out 
against  it. 

*'  For  the  rest  I  confess,  and  would  willingly  do 
penance  for  it,  that  I  am  never  so  soon  angry  as  whenr 
dressing,  or  engaged  in  any  other  important  business; 
the  beautiful,  perfect  repose  of  my  education  then 
vanishes.  My  husband  wants  to  place,  for  penance 
and  the  removal  of  my  angry  wrinkles,  a  magnifying 
glass  beside  my  toilet  glass ;  but,  thank  God !  1  do  not 
yeu  need  such  a  glass  of  detraction;  and,  besides,  my 
features  are  less  changed  than  my  colour.  Perhaps  I  am 
excusable  for  admitting  my  three  eldest  girls  (and  Lucy, 
too,  often)  to  my  toilet,  because  in  the  first  place,  they 
watch  me  so  gladly,  and  are  so  quiet  (especially  when  X 
tell  them  that  they  may  perhaps  go  with  me),  and  because, 
secondly,  a  young  girl's  eye  is  best  exercised  in  taste  with 


CHAP.  I.]  LEVANA.  221 

regard  to  matters  of  dress  on  the  costume  of  a  grown-up 
person. 

"  It  consoles  me,  however,  to  reflect  that  I  never 
purchased  a  handsome  new  article  of  dress,  either  for 
myself  or  my  daughters,  without  labouring  to  rej^ress  the 
love  of  finery,  by  telling  them  how  little  a  woman's  worth 
depends  on  dress,  and  that  a  rich  habit  is  only  chosen 
because  thereby  alone  can  rark  be  shown.  At  the  same 
time  I  must  confess  that  all  my  daughters  are  vain : 
however  many  sermons  I  make  to  them  during  my  toilet, 
I  am  not  listened  to  but  only  looked  at.  How  often  do  I 
turn  round  with  reproaches  when  my  really  beautiful 
Maximiliana  stands  behind  me  peeping  into  the  glass 
and  say,  '  There,  again,  a  pretty,  rosy,  blue- eyed  mask  is 
looking  at  herself,  and  can  never  be  tired  of  peeping  and 
staring ! ' 

"  I  farther  confess,  worthy  sir,  that  I  was  certainly  in- 
finitely more  displeased  with  Peter  when  he  lately  threw 
Veritas  (really  a  most  exquisite  ideal  figure  from  Bertuch's 
repository  of  arts)  out  of  the  window,  than  if  he  had  told 
ten  lies;  on  the  other  hand,  I  hope  I  remain  perfectly 
tranquil  when  my  husband  sometimes  makes  such  an 
uproar  about  some  little  fibs  or  other  the  children  may 
have  been  telling ;  or  about  their  frequently  quite 
justifiable  scoldings  of  the  servants:  then,  says  he, 
reflecting  on  my  anger,  '  The  Romans  did  wisely  when 
they  wrote  the  initial  letter  of  the  word  signifying  man 
inverted  to  indicate  woman.' 

"  If  God  will  only  forgive  me  the  sins  wherein  I  meant 
well,  I  shall  be  satisfied  to  bo  punished  for  the  rest.  1 
certainly  have  sinned  much,  and  deserved  temporal 
punishments  and  bad  children.  I  will,  however,  from 
this  time  forth  amend  my  educational  life  and  become 
better  and  better ;  and  I  entreat  you,  reverend,  dear  sir, 
to  forgive  me  my  sins  in  God's  stead."  In  which  case  I 
fihould  certainly  lay  my  hand  on  Jacquelina's  round  white 
shoulder,  and  readily  absolve  her  past,  though  truly  not 
her  future,  siua. 


222  JEAN  PAUL  PRIEDEICH  RICHTER.    [fRAG.  IV. 

§76. 
But  tlie  seriousness  of  the  subject  demands  tliat  a 

SECOND  CHAPTER, 

ON   THE  DESTINATION  OF  THE  FEMALE  SEX, 

Should  restore  to  it  its  due  honour.  A  father,  who  only 
sees  and  educates  his  children  for  an  hour  or  two,  must  be 
careful  not  to  require  his  own  hour's  strict  attention  and 
persistency  from  the  mother  who  wearies  herself  with  them 
all  day  long.  This  longer  companionship  excuses  much 
maternal  overflowing,  both  of  love  and  anger.  In  the 
same  way,  a  stranger  always  considers  parental  displeasure 
too  severe,  because  he  sees  the  fault  for  the  first  time  and 
isolated,  which  the  parents  behold  for  the  thousandth  time, 
and  in  an  ever-strengthening  chain  of  habit.  Mothers 
readily  acquire  an  over-estimation  of  their  children 
because,  placed  sufficiently  near  the  development  of  their 
minds  to  count  every  new  leaf,  they  regard  each  universal 
human  growth  as  a  particular  individual  one,  and  thence 
infer  some  few  miracles.  And  then  how  much  must  the 
physical  care  of  the  children,  which  in  the  middle  classes 
entirely  devolves  on  the  mother,  weary  and  deaden  her — 
as  compared  with  the  independent  father — for  their 
mental  culture. 

§  77 

The  education  of  the  first  half  of  the  first  decade  of  life 
is  already  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  mother,  owing  to  the 
necessities  of  the  body.  His  avocations  in  the  state,  in  his 
profession,  or  business,  only  grant  the  father  intervals,  and 
those  rather  for  instruction  than  education — two  happy 
classes  of  fathers  alone  excepted.  The  first  is  a  country 
gentleman,  who  reposes  in  such  a  golden  mean  of  all 
circumstances  that  he  converts  his  mansion  into  a  bene- 
volent institution  for  his  children,  if  he  love  his  successors 
better  than  cards,  and  hares,  and  rents.     The  second  is  the 


CHAP,  n.]  LEVANA.  223 

man  whom  lie  appoints— a  country  clergyman.  The  six 
days'  leisure,  the  country's  separation  from  the  turmoil  of 
towns,  the  open  air,  the  office,  which  is  itself  a  higher 
educational  institution,  and,  finally,  the  seventh  day,  which 
presents  their  physical  father  to  his  children  on  a  glorifying 
elevation  as  a  holy  and  spiritual  father,  and  impresses  an 
official  seal  on  the  lessons  of  the  week — all  these  things 
open  to  the  minister  a  sphere  of  education  into  which  he 
may  attract  other  children ;  since  he  may  always  better 
convert  his  parsonage  into  a  school-house  than  a  tutor's 
study  into  a  parish.  I  would  rather  trust  my  son  to  a 
clergyman  than  to  a  tutor ;  because  he  is  freer,  and  stands 
on  his  legs,  not  upon  crutches. 

In  the  middle  ranks  the  men  educate  best,  because  the 
women  are  little  cultivated :  in  the  higher  classes,  generally, 
the  women,  because  there  they  are  more  carefully  brought  j 
up  than  the  men.     What,  now,  can  the  man  do  ?  a  philo- ' 
sopher,  we  will  suppose,  or  a  minister  of  public  affairs,  a 
soldier,  a  president,  poet,  or  artist  ? 

In  the  very  first  instance  he  must  love  and  recompense 
his  wife  better,  in  order  that  she,  by  double  support,  the 
love  of  her  children  and  the  love  of  her  husband,  may  more 
easily  carry  out  the  most  difficult  part  of  education  —  the 
first.  In  this  way  the  husband  may  bestow  care  and 
attention  on  the  first  and  most  impoitant  education,  that 
given  by  the  mother,  which  no  after  tutors,  schools,  or 
paternal  praise  and  blame,  can  ever  replace;  that  is  to 
say,  he  will  exetcise  the  law-giving  power  of  education, 
the  mother  the  administrative.  Let  the  husband  only 
continue  to  be  the  lover  of  his  wife  and  she  will  listen  to 
what  he  says  about  education,  at  least  of  the  mind.  How 
readily  will  a  noble-minded  marriageable  girl,  or  a  bride, 
surveying  from  afar  her  future  work,  listen  to  the  educa- 
tional rules  which  even  a  youth  gives !  And,  when  married, 
a  woman  willingly  adopts  many  a  good  suggestion  about 
the  education  of  her  children  which  a  stranger  offers. 
Only  by  the  union  of  manly  energy  and  decision  with 
womanly  gentleness  does  the  child  rest  and  sail  as  at  the 
conflux  of  two  streams ;  or,  in  another  figure,  the  sun 
raises  the  tide  and  so  does  the  moon,  but  he  raises  it  only 
one  foot,  she  three,  and  both  united  four.    The  husband 


224  JEAN  PAUL  FKIEDKTCH  EICHTER.        [FRAG.  IV. 

only  marks  full  stops  in  the  child's  life,  the  wife  commas 
and  semicolons,  and  both  more  frequently.  One  might 
exclaim,  "  Mothers,  be  fathers !"  and  "  Fathers,  be 
mothers!"  for  the  two  sexes  perfect  the  human  race,  as 
Mars  and  Venus  gave  birth  to  Harmony.  The  man 
works  by  exciting  powers ;  the  woman  by  maintaining 
order  and  harmony  among  them.  The  man,  in  whom  the 
state,  or  his  own  genius,  destroys  the  balance  of  powers  for 
the  advantage  of  one,  will  always  bring  this  overlaying 
influence  to  education  :  the  soldier  will  educate  warlikely  ; 
the  poet  poetically ;  the  divine  piously  ;  the  mother  only 
will  educate  humanly.  For  only  the  woman  needs  to 
develop  nothing  in  herself  but  the  pure  human  being ;  as 
in  an  ^olian  harp  no  string  predominates  over  the  rest, 
but  the  melody  of  its  tones  proceeds  from  unison  and 
returns  to  it. 

§78. 

But  you  mothers,  and  especially  you  in  the  higher  and 
less  busy  classes,  whose  fortune  spares  you  the  heavy 
burden  of  careful  housekeeping,  and  surrounds  you  with  a 
cheerful  green  garden  for  the  education  of  your  children, 
how  is  it  that  you  can  prefer  the  tedium  of  solitude  and  of 
society  to  the  enduring  charms  of  your  children's  love — to 
the  drama  of  their  fair  development — to  the  sports  of  the 
best  beloved  beings — to  the  reward  of  the  most  delightful 
and  lasting  influence?  That  woman  is  despicable  who, 
having  children,  ever  feels  ennui.  Well  formed  nations 
have  been,  according  to  Herder,  the  educators  of  the  human 
race;  so  let  your  beauty  be,  not  merely  the  external 
garment,  but  the  very  instrument  of  instruction  and 
education.  Towns  and  countries  have  female  names,  and 
are  represented  as  females ;  and,  in  truth Ahe  mothers  who 
educate  for  the  future  the  first  five  years  w  their  children's 
lives  do  found  cities  and  countries.  Who  can  replace  a 
mother?  Not  even  a  father.  For  she,  attached  to  the 
child  by  the  daily  and  nightly  bonds  of  care  for  its  physical 
wants,  can  and  must  weave  and  embroider  mental  instruc- 
tion in  glittering  characters  on  those  tender  ties.  Will 
you,  then,  neglect  the  fairest  time  for  working  purely  and 
deeply  on  posterity,  since  the  stronger  sex  and  the  state 


CHAP.  II.]  LEVANA.  225 

will  soon  step  in,  and  bring  pulleys  and  grappling  irons 
instead  of  your  leading  strings  and  gently  raising  levers, 
and  therewith  move  them  harshly  and  roughly?  Dost 
thou,  royal  mother,  consider  it  nobler  to  guide  the  intrigues 
of  a  cabinet  than  the  little  future  heir-apparent?  Thou 
hast  borne  him  within  thee,  when  a  heavier  burden,  and 
hast  suffered  acutest  pain  when  he  was  taken  from  thee, 
and  this  only  for  his  physical  life  ;  and  wilt  thou  shun  to 
undertake  something  less  than  both  these,  whereby  thou 
mayest  draw  a  holy  spiritual  ^lory  around  thy  victory  ? 
How  often  are  your  night  watches  recompensed  by  a 
child's  coffin  ;  but  your  day  watches  over  his  m^nd  ever  by 
rich  daily  rewards  !  If  you  once  believe  that  everything 
depends  on  education,  what  name  do  you  deserve  when, 
precisely  as  your  position  is  high,  you  intrust  the  education 
of  your  children  to  persons  of  lower  rank  ;  and  while  the 
children  of  the  middle  classes  have  their  parents,  those  of 
the  higher  classes  have  only  nurses  and  maids,  as  the 
directors  of  their  path  in  life  ? 

The  whole  ancient  world  elevates  maternal  above 
paternal  love ;  and  the  mother's  must  be  great  indeed,  for 
a  loving  father  cannot  even  picture  to  himself  any  love 
greater  than  his  own ;  why,  then,  are  you,  compared 
with  the  fathers,  who  are  so  anxious  about  education 
and  who  even  write  great  books  upon  the  subject,  so 
indifferent  about  its  application  ?  For  your  lover  you  can 
freely  give  wealth  and  health  ;  why  not  then  spare  a  few 
hours  for  the  little  helpless  creature  you  love  ?  For  the 
one  you  overcome  opinions  and  inclinations ;  why  should 
you  do  less  for  the  other  ?  You,  on  whose  physically  and 
spiritually  nourishing  bosom  Nature  has  cast  the  orphans 
of  the  earth,  will  you  let  them  fade  and  die  on  a  cold  hired 
breast  ?  You,  who  are  provided  by  nature  with  patience, 
grace,  gentleness,  eloquence  and  love  for  the  beings  who 
fly  to  you  even  from  their  father,  can  you  not  watch  over 
them  ?  I  do  not  mean  during  the  night,  but  only  during 
the  day.  See !  they  who  once  rested  beneath  your  heart, 
and  have  now  no  longer  a  place  in  it,  stretch  their  little 
arms  towards  her  who  is  most  related  to  them,  and  beg 
again  for  nourishment.  As  in  many  ancient  nations  no 
request  was  denied  to  a  woman  holding  a  child  in  her 

Q 


226  JEAN   PAUL   FKIEDRICH   KICHTEK.        [fRAG.  IV. 

arms,  so  now  do  children,  lying  in  your  arms,  or  in  their 
nurse's,  offer  np  petitions  for  themselves. 

It  is  true  that  the  sacrifices  you  make  for  the  world  will 
be  little  known  by  it — men  govern  and  earn  the  glory  ;  and 
the  thousand  watchful  nights  and  sacrifices  by  which  a 
mother  purchases  a  hero,  or  a  poet,  for  the  state  are  for- 
gotten, not  once  counted ;  for  the  mothers  themselves  do 
not  count  them;  and  so,  one  century  after  another,  do 
mothers,  unnamed  and  unthanked,  send  forth  the  arrows, 
the  suns,  the  storm-birds,  and  the  nightingales  of  time ! 
But  seldom  does  a  Cornelia  find  a  Plutarch  who  connects 
her  name  with  the  Gracchi.  But  as  those  two  sons  who 
bore  their  mother  to  the  temple  of  Delphi  were  rewarded 
by  death,  so  your  guidance  of  your  children  will  only 
find  its  perfect  recompense  at  the  termination  of  life. 

Twice,  however,  you  will  not  be  forgotten.  If  you 
believe  in  an  invisible  world  in  which  the  glad  tears  of  a 
thankful  heart  are  more  valued  and  shine  more  brightly 
than  worldly  crowns  set  round  with  the  petrified  tears  of 
sorrow  ;  if  you  believe  this,  you  know  your  future  !  And, 
if  you  have  educated  rightly,  your  child  knows  you. 
..  Never,  never  has  one  forgotten  his  pure,  right-educating 
"^^mother.  On  the  blue  mountains  of  our  dim  childhood, 
towards  which  we  ever  turn  and  look,  stand  the  mothers 
who  marked  out  to  us  from  thence  our  life;  the  most 
blessed  age  must  be  forgotten  ere  we  can  forget  the 
warmest  heart.  You  wish,  0  women !  to  be  ardently 
loved,  and  for  ever,  even  till  death.  Be,  then,  the  mothers 
of  your  children.  But  you  mothers  who  do  not  educate 
your  children,  how  should  your  thanklessness  for  an 
unmerited  blessing  cause  you  to  hang  down  your  head  in 
shame  before  every  childless  mother,  every  childless  wife, 
and  blush  because  one  worthy  woman  sighs  after  that 
heaven  which  you  have  abandoned  like  a  fallen  angel. 
Oh !  why  does  fate,  which  often  for  some  century's  blood- 
hound gives  a  million  souls  to  the  rack,  deny  to  the  most 
lovely  gentle  being  the  bliss  of  one  child's  heart  ?  Why 
must  Love  long  for  an  object,  and  Hate,  not?  Ah! 
Ernestina,*    how   wouldst    thou   have   loved   and    made 

*  The  excellent  lady  to  whom  the  poet  here  pens  so  fine  a  memorial 
was  his   wife's  younger  sibter,  Ernestina  Augusta  Philippina  Mahl 


CHAP.  III.]  LETANA.  227 

happy !  But  thou  wast  not  permitted  :  the  death-cloud 
parried  thee  away  with  all  the  roses  of  thy  j^outh,  and 
thy  warm  mother's  heart  was  called,  childless,  into  the 
unknown  world  of  spirits.  Oh !  how  wouldst  thou  have 
loved  and  educated  with  thy  clearness  of  perception,  thy 
Strength  of  character,  thy  ever-flowing  spring  of  love, 
thy  self-sacrificing  soul — thou,  who  wert  adorned  with  all 
the  virtues  of  an  ancient  German  woman ! 


CHAPTER  III. 

NATURE  OF  GIELS. 
§  79. 


The  education  of  daughters  is  the  first  and  most  im- 
portant business  of  mothers ;  because  it  may  be  uninter- 
rupted, and  continue  till  the  daughter's  hand  glides 
straight  from  the  mother's  into  that  which  holds  the 
wedding  ring.  The  boy  is  educated  by  a  many-toned 
world,  school-classes,  universities,  travels,  business,  and 
libraries  ;  the  mother's  mind  educates  the  daughter.  For 
that  reason  he  is  more  independent  of  the  shocks  of 
foreign  influence  than  his  sister ;  ffor  outward  contradic- 
tion compels  him  to  an  inner  balancing  unity ,>whereas 
one  little  comer  of  the  world  easily  appears  a  whole 
quarter,  nay,  a  whole  world,  to  the  maiden. 

Before  we  speak  of  the  education  of  the  sex,  we  must 
first  determine  its  character.  According  to  well-known 
principles  the  nature  of  men  is  more  epic,  and  formed  for 
reflection ;  that  of  women  more  lyrical,  and  endowed  with 
feeling.  Campe  truly  remarks  that  the  French  have  all 
the  failings  and  perfections  of  children — hence,  I  believe, 
they  gladly  call  themselves   Athenians,  whom   the   old 


mann,  of  Leipsig.  8he  died,  Feb.  18,  1805,  in  the  twenty-bixth  year 
of  her  age.  The  desire  to  press  a  child  to  her  heart  occupied  the  last 
moments  before  her  death,  ^e  was  one  of  the  noblest  beings  that 
ever  lived.— Thans. 

Q  2 


228  JEAN   PAUL  FRIEDEICH  EICHTER.      [fkAG.  IS. 

Egyptian  priest  found  at  once  very  childlike  and  very 
childish.  T  have  discussed  more  at  large  in  other  places 
the  great  resemblance  between  the  character  of  the 
French  nation  and  that  of  women.  From  these  two 
assertions,  at  least  from  the  more  flattering,  a  third  would 
follow,  the  resemblance  between  women  and  children. 
The  same  unbroken  unity  of  nature — the  same  clear 
perception  and  understanding  of  the  present — the  same 
sharpness  of  wit — the  keen  spirit  of  observation — ardour 
and  quietness — excitability  and  easily  raised  emotions — 
the  ready,  quick  passage  from  the  inward  to  the  outward, 
and,  conversely,  from  gods  to  ribbons,  from  motes  in  the 
sunbeam  to  solar  systems — the  admiration  of  forms  and 
colours,  and  excitability  carry  out,  by  a  mental  alliance, 
the  physical  alliance  of  the  two  beings.  Hence,  to  use 
an  appropriate  simile,  children  are  in  the  first  instance 
dressed  in  women's  habits. 

He  who  loves  antitheses  of  the  newest  fashion  might 

call   women  antique,  Grecian,  or  even   Oriental  beings; 

men,  on  the  contrary,  modern,  northern,  European ;  those 

poetical,  these  philosophical.     A  man  possesses,  as  it  were, 

two  selfs ;  a  woman  but  one,  and  needs  another  to  see  her 

»4  ^,>      own.     From  this  female  incapacity  for  holding  dialogues 

with  self  may  be  explained  most  of  the  advantages  and 

disadvantages  of  woman's  nature.     And  so,  because  their 

>v  ^k    near  echo  readily  becomes  a  resonance  and  confused  with 

''^^"-^^e  original  sound,  they  can  neither  poetically  nor  philo- 

^       sophically  separate  and  re-unite  their  component  parts, 

.     ^:        and  are  more  truly  poetry  and  philosophy  than  poets  and 

^^^^^^       philosophers.     Women  show  more  taste  in  dressing  others 

3         than  themselves ;  and,  precisely  because  it   is   the  same 

with  their  bodies  as  with  their  hearts,  they  can  read  in 

those  of  others  better  than  in  their  own. 

§80. 

Let  us  illustrate  in  various  ways  the  unity  and  sincerity 
of  woman's  nature.  Because  in  her  no  power  predominates 
and  all  her  powers  are  rather  receptive  than  formative ; 
because  she,  true  mirror  of  the  versatile  present,  accom- 
panies every  external  by  an  internal  change  ;  even  because 


CHAP.  III.J  LEV  ANA.  229 

of  these  things  does  she  seem  to  us  so  enigmatic.  To 
guess  what  her  soul  is,  means  to  guess  her  physical  and 
other  external  relations;  hence,  the  man  of  the  world 
loves  her  as  well  and  names  her  after  those  long,  thin 
wine-glasses,  called  impossibles,  because  they  cannot  be 
emptied  how  high  soever  you  raise  them. 

Like  the  piano-forte,  we  might  call  her  pianissimo- 
fortissimo,  so  accurately  and  strongly  does  she  reflect  the 
extremes  of  accident ;  at  the  same  time,  and  for  this  very 
reason,  her  natural  position  must  be  one  of  repose  and 
equal  balance,  like  Vesta,  whose  holy  fire  none  but  women 
tended,  and  which  everywhere,  in  town,  temple,  or  private 
room,  took,  by  law,  the  middle  place. 

Passion  drives  the  man,  passions  the  woman;  him  a 
stream,  her  the  winds :  he  declares  some  one  power  to  be 
monarchic,  and  suffers  himself  to  be  ruled  by  it ;  she,  more 
democratic,  lets  the  passing  moment  rule.  The  man  is 
more  frequently  serious ;  the  woman,  for  the  most  part, 
either  blessed  or  cursed,  joyful  or  sorrowful ;  which  does 
not  contradict  our  former  praise  of  her  measured  tranquil 
constitution;  for  cheerfulness  dwells  all  day  with  one 
woman,  sadness  with  another ;  it  is  only  passion  that  hurls 
both  headlong. 

§81.      • 

Love  is  the  life-spirit  of  her  spirit ;  her  spirit  the  law, 
the  motive-spring  of  her  nerves.  How  deeply  she  can  love 
without  cause  and  without  return,  even  if  not  perceived  in 
her  love  of  children,  may  be  remarked  in  her  dislikes,  which 
prey  on  her  as  strongly  and  unreasonably  as  her  love 
animates.  Like  the  Otaheitans,  who  are  so  gentle  and 
childlike  and  yet  eat  their  enemies  alive,  these  delicate 
creatures  have  a  similar  appetite,  at  least  for  their  female 
foes.  They  often  yoke  doves  to  a  thunder  car.  The 
somewhat  shrewish  Juno  demanded,  and  obtained,  from 
antiquity  gentle  lambs  as  her  favourite  sacrifice.  Women 
love,  and  that  infinitely  and  truly ;  the  most  enthusiastic 
mystics  were  women ;  it  was  no  man  but  a  nun  who  died 
of  longing  love  to  Jesus.  But  it  was  only  a  man,  and  no 
woman,  who  could  demand  from  the  Stoic  sage  indifference 
to  friendship.    Nature  sent  women  into  the  world  with 


230  JEAN  PAUL   FRIEDRICH   RICHTER.       [fRAG,  IV 

this  bridal  dower  of  love,  not,  as  men  often  think,  that  they 
may  altogether  and  entirely  love  them  from  the  crown  of 
their  head  to  the  sole  of  their  feet,  but  for  this  reason — 
that  they  might  be,  what  their  vocation  is,*  mothers,  and 
love  children,  to  whom  sacrifices  must  ever  be  offered  and 
from  whom  none  are  to  be  obtained. 

Woman,  in  accordance  with  her  unbroken  clear-seeing 
nature,  loses  herself  and  what  she  has  of  heart  and 
happiness  in  the  object  she  loves.  The  present  only  exists 
to  her ;  and  this  present,  again,  is  a  determinate  one,  it  is 
one,  and  only  one,  human  being.  As  Swift  loved  not  the 
human  race,  but  only  individuals  belonging  to  it,  so 
women,  though  they  have  the  warmest  hearts,  are  no 
citizens  of  the  world,  scarcely  citizens  of  a  town  or  a 
village,  but  only  of  their  home ;  no  woman  can  at  the  same 
time  love  the  four  quarters  of  the  world  and  her  own  child, 
but  a  man  can.  He  loves  the  idea  ;  she  the  manifestation, 
that  which  alOne  is ;  as  God — if  this  bold  figure  be  not  too 
bold — has  only  one  loved  object — His  Universe.  This  pe- 
culiarity is  seen  in  many  other  ways.  Men  love  things  best ; 
for  instance,  truths,  possessions,  countries  :  women  love 
persons  best :  the  former,  it  is  true,  readily  personify  what 
they  love.  Just  as  what  is  the  goddess  of  wisdom  to  a 
man,  to  a  woman  easily  becomes  a  man  who  has  wisdom. 
Even  when  a  child,  a  woman  loves  a  mock-human  being — 
a  doll,  and  works  for  it ;  the  boy  gets  hold  of  a  wooden 
horse  and  a  troop  of  tin  soldiers,  and  works  with  them.  It 
probably  arises  from  this  very  fact,  that  among  boys  and 
girls,  sent  at  the  same  age  to  school,  though  the  latter 
mature  sooner  they  yet  retain  their  play-persons  longer 
than  boys  do  their  play-things.  When,  however,  grown- 
up women  of  the  lower  classes  look  intensely  after  a 
beautiful  doll,  carried  by  a  child  in  the  higher  ranks  of 
life,  it  seems  their  love  of  dress  may  exceed  their  love  of 
children.  Further,  girls  kiss  one  another  more  frequently 
than  boys ;  those  look  at  the  rider,  these  at  the  horse ; 
those  inquire  about  appearances,  these  about  their  causes ; 
those  about  children,  these  about  animals. 

*  See  §  83. 


CHAP,  in.]  LEVANA.  231 

§  82. 

The  more  corrupt  a  century,  the  more  contempt  is  there 
^  in  it  for  women.  The  more  slavery  in  the  form,  or  form- 
lessness, of  government,  the  more  do  they  become  the 
handmaidens  of  servants.  In  old  free  Germany  women 
were  considered  sacred,  and,  like  their  images,  the  do\es  of 
Jupiter  at  Dodona,  pronounced  oracles;  in  Sparta  and 
England,  and  in  the  fair  age  of  chivalry,  women  bore  the 
order-jewels  of  man's  reverence.  Now,  since  women  rise 
and  fall,  become  noble  or  base,  according  to  the  form  of 
government — and  this  is  constantly  created  and  maintained 
by  men— it  is  clear  that  women,  after  the  character  of 
men  is  formed,  imitate  that  model :  that  there  must  first  be 
seducing  men  before  seduced  women ;  that  every  deteri- 
oration of  the  female  character  is  but  the  after  winter  of  a 
similar  one  in  men.  Place  moral  heroes  in  the  field,  and 
heroines  follow  them  as  brides  ;  but  the  opposite  does  not 
hold  true ;  no  heroine  can  create  a  hero  through  love  of 
her,  but  she  may  give  birth  to  one.  Therefore,  all  the  more 
contemptible  is  the  narrow-minded,  squeamish  Parisian 
man  who  makes  tirades  against  the  Parisian  women,  and, 
consequently,  against  all  women,  while  he  only  ingrafts 
on  them  his  own  old  sins,  and  poisons  their  womanhood  by 
his  own  womanishness.  How  would  such  a  plaster-cast 
creature  of  the  ago  stand  and  tremble  and  wither  away 
before  a  Spartan  or  an  ancient  German  woman  ! 

Consequently  the  present  age,  in  complaining  of  female 
sensuality,  admits  the  previous  existence  of  the  sin  in 
men  Meanwhile  let  the  devil's  advocates  stand  forth 
against  women,  and  those  of  holiness  for  them,  and  to  the 
advantage  of  women.  There  are  many  satirical  crea- 
tures who  get  something  printed,  and  are  viewed  with 
wonder,  and  written  up  by  German  critics  as  men  deeply 
read  in  human  nature  for  no  other  reason  than  this,  be- 
cause, without  any  further  pretension  to  knowledge  of  the 
world,  insight,  heart,  or  mind,  they  have  converted  every 
woman  into  nothing  more  than  a  fifth  or  sixth  sense,  and 
all  their  own  desires  into  one  overlaying  one :  and  then 
especially  the  critic  (he's  a  school-teacher!)  thanks  God 


232  JEAN  PAUL   FRIEDEICH   RICHTER.       [fRAG.  IV. 

and  the  autlior  that  now,  for  a  few  pence,  which  he  does 
not  pay  but  receive  as  a  reward  for  his  favour,  he  at  last 
holds  in  his  hand  the  key  of  the  French  and  allied  female 
castle. 

These  denouncers  of  women  are,  at  all  events,  only  half 
right,  and  certainly  half  wrong ;  the  former  when  they 
speak  of  physiological,  the  latter  when  of  moral,  sensuality. 
Of  the  former — when  without  the  concurrence  of  a  perfectly 
innocent  heart — no  one  is  guilty  but  God  the  Father ;  and 
just  as  well  might  the  greater  beauty  of  a  woman's  bosom 
be  attributed  to  her  as  a  sin  and  excess.  But,  if  Heaven 
created  her  especially  for  children,  it  is  manifest  that  this 
physiological  sensuality  was  ordained  by  the  great  Father 
of  all  children  for  the  advantage  of  the  growing  after- 
world.  The  first  dwelling  which  man  inhabits  is  an 
organised  one ;  and  can  this  be  too  rich,  too  strong  for 
his  first  original  formation?  Can  want  of  power  and 
life  ever  form  an  organic  creature  full  of  power  and  life. 
And  which  moment  is  the  most  important  in  the  whole 
life  ?  Certainly  not  the  last,  as  theologians  have  often 
stated ;  but  probably  the  first,  as  physicians  show. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  allotted,  as  a  counterpoise 
to  the  senses  of  woman  a  purer  heart  than  that  of  man, 
which  makes  common  cause  with  them;  and  thus  the 
accusation  of  her  physical  conformation  closes  with  an 
eulogy  on  her  spiritual  nature.  But  these  good  beings 
do  not  defend  themselves  save  by  proxy ;  and  it  is 
probable  that,  with  their  facility  of  belief,  mistrustful 
words  may  at  last  turn  their  watchfulness  away  from 
their  inward  heart;  just  as  many  lose  their  religion,  or 
their  religious  sentiments,  without  knowing  how,  merely 
because  they  hear  discussions,  and  nothing  else,  about  it. 

§83. 

Nature  has  directly  formed  woman  to  be  a  mother,  only 
indirectly  to  be  a  wife ;  man,  on  the  contrary,  is  rather 
made  to  be  a  husband  than  a  father.  It  were,  indeed, 
somewhat  strange  if  the  stronger  sex  must  lean  on  the 
weaker,  the  flower  support  its  stem,  the  ivy  the  tree; 
nevertheless   he,  just   because   he  is   the   stronger,  does 


CHAP,  in.]  LEVANA.  233 

enforce  sometliiiig  of  that  kind,  makes  his  wife  into  the 
bearer  of  his  arms  and  burdens,  his  marketer  and  provision 
cooker  ;  and  the  husband  regards  the  wife  as  the  barn  and 
outer  shed  of  his  household  goods.  He  is  far  more  created 
for  her  than  she  for  him :  she  is  for  physical  what  he  is 
for  mental  posterity.  Fleets  and  armies  prove  the  dis- 
pensableness  of  women ;  on  the  contrary,  societies  for 
women,  convents  for  instance,  do  not  arise  without  some 
male  directing  lever  as  primum  mobile.  Nature,  which 
moves  on  kindly,  yet  cruelly,  towards  her  vast  ends  in 
the  world,  has,  for  this  purpose,  armed  women — the 
colleges  and  training  houses  of  posterity — mentally  and 
physically  with  power  of  giving  and  power  of  denying : 
both  their  physical  and  mental  charms  and  weaknesses 
afford  them  protection.  Hence  arise  regard  and  attention 
to  their  persons,  with  which  their  souls  are  more  in- 
timately united  into  one  existence  than  ours ;  hence  their 
dread  of  wounds,  because  these  affect  a  double  life,  and 
their  indifference  to  sickness ;  whereas  men  fear  wounds 
less  than  illnesses,  because  those  affect  the  body  most,  these 
the  mind.  Connected  with  these  are  her  temperance,  her 
love  of  cleanliness,  and  also  her  modesty  and  her  inclina- 
tion to  housewifery  and  quietness.  The  moral  and  ap- 
prehensive nature  of  girls  is  more  rapidly  developed  than 
the  mind  of  boys  (as,  according  to  Zach,  satellites  move 
quicker  than  planets;  or,  as  flowers  in  valleys  bloom 
sooner  than  on  mountains ;)  because  to  the  physical,  and, 
oonsequently,  maternal,  maturity  of  fifteen,  nature  has 
also  added  that  of  the  mind.  So  soon  as  the  luxuriant 
flower  has,  with  its  pollen,  provided  for  another  spring, 
Nature  harshly  destroys  its  attractive  colours,  and  leaves 
it  to  its  mental  treasures  and  harvest.  On  the  con- 
trary, she  preserves  man's  body,  which  has  to  serve 
on  a  longer  journey  of  action  and  thought,  active  into 
the  vale  of  years,  and  far  beyond  the  season  of  woman's 
bloom. 

We  may  here  subjoin  this  remark,  drawn  from  the 
animal  kingdom,  that  the  male  shows  his  greatest  courage 
and  power  in  the  love-season,  but  the  female  after  having 
given  birth  to  her  offspring. 

It  is  easy  to  draw  out  these  assertions  into  the  lessei 


234  JEAN  PAUL   FRIEDRICH  EICHTER.        [fRAG.  iV. 

iiiatters  of  detail;  for  instance,  female  avarice,  which 
saves  not  for  self  but  for  her  children ;  love  of  trifles ; 
love  of  talking ;  the  gentle  voice,  and  many  things  which 
we  blame. 

§84. 

We  return  to  the  former  complaints  about  women.  But 
why  do  men  use  this  word  so  often  about  those  beings  to 
whom  they  owe  the  first  thanks  for  existence,  and  who 
are  sacrificed  by  Nature  herself  that  life  may  follow  life  ? 
Why  are  the  treasure-houses  of  humanity,  its  creators 
under  God,  not  esteemed  more  highly;  and  why  do  they 
only  receive  the  wreath  of  corn  ears  to  carry  because  it  is 
prickly  ?  Were  there  only  one  father  on  the  earth  we 
should  worship  him ;  but  were  there  only  one  mother 
we  should  reverence  and  love  her  as  well  as  worship. 

The  noblest  and  fairest  quality  with  which  nature 
could  and  must  furnish  women  for  the  benefit  of  pos- 
terity was  love,  the  most  ardent,  yet  without  return,  and 
for  an  object  unlike  itself.  The  child  receives  love,  and 
kisses,  and  night-watchings,  but  at  first  it  only  answers 
with  rebuffs ;  and  the  weak  creature  which  requires  most 
pays  least.  But  the  mother  gives  unceasingly  ;  yea,  her 
love  only  becomes  greater  with  the  necessity  and  thank- 
lessness  of  the  recipient,  and  she  feels  the  greatest  for 
the  most  feeble,  as  the  father  for  the  strongest  child. 

"  But,"  it  may  be  objected  to  this  view  of  woman's 
destination,  "women  particularly  seek  after  and  honour 
all  mental  or  physical  power;  they  love  their  own  sex 
little,  and  judge  its  weaknesses  more  harshly  than  the 
roughness  of  men.  However  angry  a  master  may  be  with 
his  servant,  a  mistress  is  far  more  so  with  her  slave, 
whether  in  the  colonies  or  in  Germany ;  and  the  Koman 
ladies  chose  to  have  their  toilets  performed  by  maidens 
with  bared  bosoms,  so  that  they  might,  at  the  least  mis- 
take in  dressing,  stick  pins  into  them  for  punishment. 
Mothers,  as  well  as  courts,  celebrate  the  birth  of  a  princess 
with  fewer  cannon  shots  than  that  of  a  prince.  If  a 
woman,  in  any  trick  of  cards,  is  asked  to  fix  on  some  one 
card,  she  always  chooses  the  king  or  knave,  at  all  events, 


ClliP.  HI.]  LEVANA.  235 

nevex  a  queen  ;  and  actresses  like  to  perform  no  parts  better 
than  those  of  disguised  young  men.  But  one  does  not 
need  to  be  very  long  in  Paris,  or  in  the  world,  aye,  or 
upon  the  world,  to  guess  what  they  want  by  it." 

Nothing  bad;  but  a  protector  for  their  children.  As 
Herder  has  beautifully  remarked,  nature  has  implanted 
reverence  for  men  in  women's  heart ;  from  this  reverence 
springs,  in  the  first  instance,  love  for  men,  but  afterwards 
it  passes  into  love  for  children.  If  even  men,  loving  with 
the  fancy  and  after  preconceived  notions  far  more  than 
with  the  heart,  follow  actresses  because  they  have  seen 
them  play  fine  romantic  characters, — queens,  goddesses, 
heroines,  yes,  heroines  of  virtue  ;  why  should  not  women 
fall  in  love  from  reverence  when  they  see  us  play  the 
greatest  parts,  not  as  an  actress  does  Lucretia,  Desdemona, 
or  Iphigenia,  for  a  short  evening's  amusement,  but  for 
years  of  sober  seriousness  on  the  theatre  of  the  world  or 
of  the  state :  one  man  is  a  hero,  another  a  president,  a 
third  a  king,  a  fourth  a  world-teacher,  I  mean  an  author ! 
Children  demand  this  love  of  the  mother  for  their  father 
as  their  inheritance,  or  pledged  property,  and  she  can  only 
keep  some  interest ;  until,  in  old  age,  when  the  children 
themselves  are  parents,  she,  a  grey-headed  woman,  as 
silver-bride*,  again  experiences  a  kind  of  love  for  her 
silver-bridegroom.  In  a  childless  marriage  the  wife 
regards  the  husband  as  her  first  and  only  son,  possessed 
of  qualities  which  constitute  her  true  honour-  and  support 
her  during  her  whole  life ;  and  she  loves  the  young  man 
nnutterably. 

§85. 

If  a  young  woman  cherish  a  Ipve  compressed  into  the 
bud  of  esteem,  she  will  do  little  less  than  all  for  her  lover ; 
or  what  a  mother  does  for  her  child.  She  forgets  herself 
in  him,  because  only  through  him  does  she  remember 
herself;  and  her  paradise  is  only  valued  as  a  condition 
and  fore-court  of  heaven  to  him  :  and  she  would  receive  a 
hell  at  the  same  price.     Her  heart  is  the  citadel,  every 

♦  In  (iermany,  as  sometimes  in  England,  the  twenty-fifth  anniversary 
of  a  m»rriud  couple's  wedding-dav  ia  called  their  silver  wedding-day : 
tbe  fiftieth,  their  golden  weddin^t-rlay  — Tbavs. 


236  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   EICHTER.       [fRAG.  17. 

thing  else  is  but  the  suburbs  and  country  round  about  it ; 
and  only  with  the  former  is  the  latter  vanquished. 

If  it  be  true  that  the  lost,  in  their  haunts  of  misery, 
would  gladly  exchange  the  poisonous  lures  by  which  they 
must  maintain  and  deceive  themselves  for  the  sweet 
intoxication  of  sincere  heart-felt  love,  will  not  the  fresh 
virgin  heart  resign  all  for  the  sunrise  of  life,  for  the  first 
unbounded  love,  which  is  ardent  in  accordance  with  its 
purity  and  its  previous  non-existence,  to  the  god-man  ; 
who,  for  a  being  hitherto  bound  to  a  little  comer  of  the 
world,  suddenly  reveals  a  whole  new  world  which  is,  for 
the  maiden,  this  world  joined  with  the  next.  Who,  then, 
shall  restrain  the  gratitude  of  love  towards  him  who  has 
opened  happiness  and  freedom  to  a  mind  chained  to  the 
narrow  present,  who  has  embodied  all  those  dreams  which 
formerly  the  unoccupied  soul  personified  in  the  stars,  in 
spring-time,  in  friends,  and  child-like  duties?  I  know 
him  well  who  shall  place  that  restraint ;  it  is  even  he  who 
requires  the  opposite, — the  lover.  Certainly  a  wisely  and 
purely  educated  maiden  is  so  poetic  a  flower  of  this  dull 
world,  that  the  sight  of  this  glorious  blossom  hanging 
some  years  after  the  honey-moon  with  yellow  faded 
leaves  in  unwatered  beds,  must  grieve  any  man  who 
beholds  it  with  a  poet's  eye ;  and  who  must,  consequently, 
in  sorrow  over  the  common  usefulness  and  servitude  of 
the  merely  human  life,  over  the  difference  between  the 
virgin  and  the  matron,  utter  the  deadliest  wishes :  yes,  I 
say,  he  would  rather  send  the  virgin  with  her  wreath  of 
rose  buds,  her  tenderness,  her  ignorance  of  the  sufferings 
of  life,  her  dream-pictures  of  a  holy  Eden,  into  the  grave- 
yard of  earth,  which  is  God's  field,  than  into  the  waste 
places  of  life.  Yet,  do  it  not,  0  poet :  the  virgin  becomes 
a  mother,  and  again  gives  birth  to  the  youth  and  the  Eden 
which  have  fled  from  her ;  and  to  the  mother  herself  they 
return,  and  fairer  than  before :  and  so  let  it  be  as  it  is ! 

§86. 

How  is  it  that  in  morally,  as  well  as  architecturally,* 
undermined   Paris    the   women   read    the   characters   of 
•  It  is  well  known  that  Paris  is  built  from  the  quarries  beneath  it. 


CHAP.  III.]  LEV  ANA.  237 

Heloise,  Attila,  Valeria,  in  whicli  only  the  love  of  the 
heart  plays  and  bums  with  as  great  eagerness  as  love 
letters  ?  Women,  even  old  women,  and  young  men  devour 
such  works ;  whereas  older  men  prefer  being  devoured  by 
works  of  a  very  different  kind.  As  in  a  well  played  game 
of  chess,  or  in  war,  he  wins  who  makes  the  first  move,  so 
must  women,  as  the  assaulted  party,  succumb.  But  who 
attacks  us,  save  ourselves  ?  And  which  is  more  guilty, 
the  serpent  on  the  tree,  or  Eve  under  the  tree  ?  And  how 
small  and  transitory  is  often  the  price  for  which  we  bar- 
gain away  the  whole  happiness  of  a  woman's  life !  It  is 
like  Xerxes  who  carried  a  war  into  Greece  because  he 
liked  eating  Attic  figs. 

Farther :  a  woman's  imagination,  not  worn  out  like  a 
man's  by  wine  and  excitement,  must  all  the  more  easily 
burst,  on  our  account,  into  those  flames  which  consume 
happiness. 

Hippel  remarks,  and  with  justice,  that  a  man  overtaken 
in  wrong-doing  is  ashamed  and  speechless,  but  that  a 
woman  becomes  bold  and  passionately  indignant.  And 
this  is  the  cause  of  it :  the  man  clearly  beholds  himself, 
not  so  the  woman ;  therefore,  she  the  more  readily  makes 
her  innocence  appear  both  to  others  and  herself.  In  short, 
our  sins  are  more  generally  intentional ;  hers  thoughtless, 
and  therefore  the  more  excusable. 

And  finally  :  there  are  everywhere  more  chaste  damsels 
than  young  men,  more  chaste  women  than  men,  more  old 
maids  than  old  bachelors.  Man,  however,  may  glorify 
himself  on  two  accounts.  First :  his  relations  to  life  and 
the  world,  and  his  courage  lead  him  more  frequently  into 
temptations ; — and  second :  the  man  who  preserves  his 
chastity  on  principle  possesses  therein  a  prcetorian  cohort ; 
but  the  woman  who  protects  hers  with  her  heart  and  from 
regard  to  social  morality  has  a  guardian  angel  and  guard 
of  honour.  The  cohort,  however,  is  stronger  than  the 
angel  and  the  guard. 


/ 


^ 


238     JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRICH  RICHTER.   |  FRAG.  IV. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

EDUCATION   OF   GIRLS. 

§  87. 

After  the  last  chapter  this  might  be  a  short  one,  because, 
according  to  it,  girls  are  to  be  educated  as  mothers,  that 
is,  as  teachers.  Our  only  duty  would  consist  in  giving 
them  printed  and  verbal  lessons  in  instruction  :*  and  for 
this  purpose  no  more  susceptible  period  is  offered  to  the 
parents  than  the  time  of  hope  and  the  six  months  of  their 
daughter's  engagement ;  nor  to  the  husband,  than  the 
first  year  of  wedded  life  :  and  then,  again,  that  the  elder 
daughters  should  be  permitted  to  educate  the  younger. 
The  last  is  probably  the  most  spiritual  school  for  obtaining 
clearness  of  ideas,  patience  and  circumspection  to  which 
parents  can  send  their  daughters :  unfortunately  it  is 
closed  against  the  youngest  child. 

But  before  and  after  being  a  mother,  a  girl  is  a  human 
being ;  and  neither  motherly  nor  wifely  destination  can 
overbalance  or  substitute  the  human,  but  must  become  its 
means,  not  end.  As  above  the  poet,  the  painter,  or  the 
hero,  so  above  the  mother,  does  the  human  being  rise  pre- 
eminent :  and  as  the  artist,  while  forming  his  work,  does, 
at  the  same  time,  form  something  higher — himself,  the 
creator  of  that  work  ;  so  the  mother  forms,  along  with  the 
child,  her  own  more  holy  self.  Every  divinely  human 
thing  has  attached  to  it  by  nature  the  condition  of  locality  ; 
the  ideal  dwells  within  the  bodily  manifestation,  the  flower 
pollen  within  its  cup :  the  costliest  pearls,  so  easily  lost, 
are  strung  on  common  bands  and  threads,  and  pierced  in 
order  to  be  preserved. 

Since  nature  has  ordained  woman  for  maternity,  it  has 
also  ordered  her  development ;   and  we  need  but  not  to 

*  Why  do  they  not  have  published  for  them  gleanings,  especialiy 
for  the  female  sex,  from  Hermes'  many  novels,  rather  than  from  otliei 
writers;  since  they  comprise  so  many  fine,  deep,  severe  and  weighty 
views  and  hints. 


CHAP.  IV.]  1.EVA.NA.  239 

oppose  nor  anticipate  its  determinations.  But  as  it  always 
labours  blindly  and  fixedly  on,  only  for  its  own  one-sided 
aims,  its  end  or  ends,  so  education  must  not  attempt  to 
vanquish  it, — for  every  natural  energy  is  holy, — but  to 
make  the  whole  nature  complete  by  softening,  purifying 
and  harmonizing  the  preponderating  power  by  means  of 
the  other  balancing  powers. 

§  88. 

A  woman  feels,  but  does  not  see,  herself;  she  is  all 
heart;  her  very  ears  are  ears  of  the  heart.  To  observe 
herself  and  what  appertains  thereunto,  viz.  reasons,  is  too 
disagreeable  for  her.  I^erhaps  it  was  on  this  account  that 
our  ancient  jurisprudence  sooner  relieved  a  man  than  a 
woman  from  an  oath,  but  applied  the  torture  sooner  to  him 
than  to  her.  Reasons  (change  and  affect  the  firm  man 
more  easily  than  the  weak  versatile  woman  :  as  lightning 
passes  better  through  solid  bodies  than  through  the  thin 
air. 

What  then  will  happen  ?  Feelings  come  and  go,  like 
light  troops  following  the  victory  of  the  present ;  but 
principles,  like  troops  of  the  line,  are  undisturbed  and 
stand  fast.  Shall  we  now  by  anatomising  it  rob  the  heart 
of  its  fair  fulness  of  inner  life.  It  were  sad  if  one  could 
do  it ;  but  Sommering,  after  the  thousand  ears  he  has 
dissected,  still  experiences  the  charms  of  harmony;  and 
the  philosopher,  even  after  publishing  his  theory  of  morals 
and  of  taste,  still  feels  the  power  of  conscience  and  of 
beauty. 

Let  a  girl  learn  to  prove,  analyse  and  explain,  not  her 
feeling,  but  the  object  of  that  feeling ;  and  then,  having 
experienced  the  wrongness  of  the  object,  she  will  be  com- 
pellod  during  the  whole  continuance  of  the  sensation  to 
follow  only  the  insight  she  has  gained.  Do  not  oppose 
the  feelings,  but  the  imagination. 

This,  in  a  picture  of  war,  for  instance,  compresses  the 
miseries  of  a  nation  into  one  heart ;  those  of  a  day  or  of 
a  year  into  one  moment;  the  various  possibilities  into 
one  certainty :  now,  if  by  means  of  the  severing  concave 
mirror  of  reation,  wo  separate  this  fancied  focus  into  its 


240  JEAN  PAUL   FKIEDRICH  RICHTER.       [fRAG.  IV. 

various  individual  rays,  the  feeling  is  not  destroyed,  but 
only  deferred.  But,  dear  mother,  cherish  and  jDrotect  every 
warm  and  tender  feeling  which  years  themselves  bring 
and  form,  and  do  not  revel  in  the  sensibility  of  your 
youngest  daughter,  and  lose  yourself  in  tears  of  love  while 
relating  some  lamentable  story,  or  imparting  such  feelings 
in  all  their  nakedness.  For  in  future  years  either  these 
beings  will  succumb  to  their  feelings,  or  their  feelings 
to  them.  Feelings,  flowers,  and  butterflies,  live  all  the 
longer  the  later  they  are  developed.  Any  thing,  whether 
mental  or  physical,  which  will  certainly  at  some  time  come 
into  real  existence,  may  without  injury  arrive  somewhat 
late,  but  not  too  soon ;  and  the  Germans  of  Tacitus  pre- 
served without  disadvantage  that  heart  full  of  energy 
which  they  gave  for  ever  to  one,  even  though  it  might 
not  be  a  young  virginal  one,  which  had  beaten  for  them 
in  many  battles. 

Sin  not  against  your  daughters,  nor  blasphemously 
offend  the  spirit  of  God,  by  showing  and  recommending, 
even  indirectly,  any  excellence  they  may  possess,  be  it  art, 
science,  or  the  sanctuary  of  the  heart,  as  a  lure  to  men,  or 
bait  for  catching  a  husband :  to  do  so  is  truly  to  shoot 
wild-fowl  with  diamonds,  or  to  knock  down  fruit  with  a 
sceptre.  Instead  of  making  heaven  a  means  and  handle 
for  this  earth,  we  should,  in  the  highest  possible  degree, 
elevate  this  as  a  means  of  attaining  that.  Only  an  under- 
standing of  the  general  regulation  of  a  house, — order, 
knowledge  of  house-keeping,  and  similar  matters,  should 
be  spoken  of  as  valuable  for  the  future  groundwork  of  the 
marriage  tie.  The  so  called  lady-like  accomplishments 
are,  at  most,  but  garlands  of  flowers  by  which  Cupid  may 
be  bound  ;  but  Hymen,  who  breaks  through  these,  and 
garlands  of  fruit  too,  is  best  guided  and  held  by  the  golden 
official  chain  of  domestic  capability. 

By  persuasive  speech  impart  clearness  to  principles,  and, 
by  dint  of  repetition,  give  them  the  force  of  intuitions. 
Especially,  permit  as  little  as  possible  the  enjoyment  of 
self- commiseration,  which,  merely  for  the  pleasure  of 
hugging  pain,  flies  from  every  cheerful  light.  The  hatred 
and  correction  of  every  humour,  and  war  against  every 
obiectless   frame   of  mind,   are  exercises-      Even   in  the 


CHAP.  IV.J  LBVANA.  241 

Bmallest  matters,  let  nothing  wilful  pass  nnpunislied  ii\ 
your  daughters. 

To  effect  all  this,  some  man  is  needed  round  whose  firm 
stem  this  weak  wavering  flower-stalk  may  be  trained. 
A  lover  before  marriage  generally  prefers  looking  at  the 
rainbow  of  tearful  sensibilities,  of  fickle  whims,  and  helpless 
weaknesses  ;  but  after  marriage,  when  the  rainbow  turns 
into  wet  weather,  he  requires  reasonableness  and  thorough- 
ness, because  he  sufibrs  more  from  whims  which  are 
perpetually  recurring  than  from  graver  faults ;  and,  if  he 
does  not  find  these  qualities,  he  awakes  from  his  private 
dreams  without  finding  them  realised.  His  dreams  are 
these :  he  had,  forsooth,  when  a  lover,  in  various  pastoral 
Arcadian  hours  of  the  heart,  led  his  love  to  different 
resolutions, — for  which  he  had  given  his  own  good  reasons, 
— hence  he  was  led  to  expect  a  marriage  full  of  governing 
reasons  ;  "  For,"  said  he,  "  if  now,  in  the  warmth  of  youth, 
she  already  follow  reasons,  what  will  she  do  when  cooler 
and  older  ?  "  Merely  the  very  opposite.  For  she  had  only 
paid  attention  to  his  wishes,  not  to  his  chain  of  reasoning, 
and  done  every  thing  solely  from  love.  Wherefore,  ye 
husbands,  retain  the  love  of  your  wives  and  you  are  raised 
above  the  necessity  of  sermons  on  reason.  Should  it  be 
more  difficult  or  more  unprofitable,  to  live  and  act  in 
company  with  your  own  wife  and  household  queen,  than 
to  enter  into  partnership  with  the  Virgin  Mary,  the  queen 
of  heaven,  as  a  merchant  in  Messina  did,  and  honourably 
handed  over  to  her  a  share  of  his  profits  ?* 

Preserve  girls  from  fear  and  affectation,  which,  for  the 
meet  part,  find  place  where  reason  is  excluded.  Even  at  a 
very  early  age  you  may  cover  with  a  coloured  veil  many 
imaginary  fears :  for  instance,  you  may  tell  a  child  that 
the  first  clap  of  thunder  she  hears  is  the  rolling  of  the 
chariot  on  which  the  so  long  expected  spring  arrives ;  or 
you  may  yourself  unconcernedly  regard  animals  which 
alarm  by  the  rapidity  of  their  movements,  as  mice ;  or  by 
their  size,  as  horses ;  or  by  their  unpleasing  forms,  as 
Bpiders  and  toetds.  Then  direct  the  child's  eye  from  the 
whole  to  the  individual  beautiful  limbs,  and  gradually, 
withe  at  compulsion,  draw  child  and  beast  together:  for 
*  Nene  Sammlnng  der  Beisebeechreibungen,  B.  7. 

B 


242  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   EICHTER.       [fKAG.  IV. 

children,  unlike  animals  governed  by  instinct,  have 
scarcely  any  other  fear  than  that  produced  by  strangeness. 
One  scream  of  fear  from  a  mother  may  resound  through 
the  whole  life  of  her  daughter ;  for  no  rational  discourse 
can  extinguish  the  mother's  scream.  You  may  make  any 
full  stop,  colon,  semicolon,  or  comma  of  life  before  your 
children,  but  not  a  note  of  exclamation  ! 

§89. 

The  morality  of  girls  is  custom,  not  principle.  Boys 
might  be  improved  by  the  bad  example  of  drunken  Helots  ; 
gii-ls  only  by  a  good  one.  Even  boys  return  from  the 
Augean  stable  of  the  world  with  some  of  its  smell  adhering 
to  them ;  but  girls  are  frail,  white  Parisian  apple-blossoms, 
parlour-flowers,  from  which  decay  must  be  averted,  not 
with  the  hand  but  with  fine  camel-hair  brushes.  They, 
like  the  priestesses  of  antiquity,  should  be  educated  only 
in  holy  places,  and  never  hear,  much  less  see,  what  is  rude, 
immoral,  or  violent.  Magdalena  Pazzi  said,  on  her  death- 
bed, that  she  did  not  know  what  a  sin  against  modesty 
was :  let  education  at  least  try  to  imitate  this  example. 
Girls,  like  pearls  and  peacocks,  are  valued  for  no  other 
colour  than  the  most  perfect  whiteness.  A  corrupt  youth 
may  lay  down  a  noble  book,  walk  up  and  down  the  room 
in  passionate  tears  and  exclaim,  "  I  will  amend ;"  and  keep 
his  word.  At  the  end  of  forty  years  Eousseau  accomplished 
his  first  transformation  from  the  caterpillar  state,  and  con- 
tinued in  it  until  death  removed  him  by  a  second  change. 
I  have  hitherto  read  of  few  women  who  have  reformed 
themselves  by  other  means,  even  in  the  most  favourable 
cases,  than  that  of  a  husband ;  and,  what  concerns  some 
Magdalen  asylums  in  great  Magdalen  cities,  no  man 
desirous  of  marrying  would  accept  from  them,  as  from  a 
matrimonial-office,  his  wedded  half,  properly  but  a  kind  of 
broken  fragment.  Perhaps  this  consideration  excuses  the 
conduct  of  the  world  which  regards  the  errors  of  men  but 
as  the  chicken-pox,  which  leaves  few  or  no  marks  behind ; 
but  those  of  women  as  the  small-pox,  which  imprints  its 
traces  on  the  recovered  patient,  and  lives  on  in  the  general 
remembrance. 

The  purer  the  golden  vessel  the  more  reaJily  is  it  bent ; 


CHAP.  IV.]  LEV  ANA.  243 

the  higher  worth  of  women  is  sooner  lost  than  that  ot 
men.  According  to  the  old  (lennan  rural  custom,  the  sons 
walked  to  church  behind  the  father,  but  the  daughters 
before  the  mother,  apparently  because  the  latter  should 
not  be  much  left  out  of  sight. 

Nature  herself  has  surrounded  these  delicate  souls  with 
an  ever-present  in-bom  guard,  with  modesty,  both  in 
speaking  and  hearing.  A  woman  uses  no  figure  of  eloquence 
— her  own,  at  most,  excepted — so  often  as  that  of  accismus* 
Keep  watch  over  this  guard,  and  pursue,  by  this 
indication  of  nature,  the  way  to  education.  On  this 
account  mothers,  fathers,  men,  and  even  youths,  are  their 
best  companions ;  and,  on  the  contrary,  girls  connected 
with  other  girls  of  a  similar  age,  as  in  schools,  provoke  one 
another  to  an  exchange  of  foibles  rather  than  of  excellences, 
to  love  of  dress,  admiration  and  gossip,  even  to  the  for- 
getting of  accismus.  Even  sisters  of  unequal  age  injure 
one  another,  how  much  more,  then,  similar-aged  play- 
fellows. To  know  this  one  needs  only  to  listen  to  the 
mutual  teazing  among  the  members  of  a  girl's  school  when 
perchance  a  young  man  has  entered,  or  even  approached 
the  door.  In  the  paternal  dwelling  little  would  be  made 
of  such  a  circumstance,  because  it  would  happen  more 
frequently,  with  23erfect  seriousness,  and  among  fewer 
rivals.  And  what  more  is  there  to  say  about  these  despotic 
interim-convents  ?  Men  are  made  for  society,  but  women 
for  maternal  solitude.  A  boy's  school  is  right,  but  not  a 
girl's  ;  just  as  a  ship  of  war  filled  with  women  would  be 
merely  a  castle  in  the  air, — from  its  requiring  so  much 
unity,  quickness,  punctuality  and  obedience.  Girls  depend 
upon  one  heart,  boys  o;n  many  heads.  The  most  that  a 
girl  could  find  in  a  school  would  be  a  second  mother ;  but 
the  father  would  bo  wanting. 

Another  thing  which  a  mother  should  carefully  guard 
against  can  scarcely  be  avoided  in  a  girls'  school.  It  is, 
that  as  a  mistress  rules  and  speaks,  (for  a  master  would 
speak  quite  differently)  and  as  rude,  violent,  dull-minded 
girls  must  be  mingled  with  gentle,  delicate  and  susceptible 
ones,  the  bad  must  be  cured  by  means  of  many  punish- 

♦  So  rhetoriciana  tenn  the  figure  by  which  one  spt-aka,  without  nil 
longing,  of  the  very  objects  for  which  the  strongest  desire  is  felt. 

R  2 


244  JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRICH  EICHTER.      [fEAG.  IV. 

ments  which  are  poison  to  the  best.  I  mean  this ;  nothing 
so  roughly  brushes  the  tender  auricula-dust,  or  flower- 
pollen,  ofl"  the  minds  of  girls  as  that  old-maidish  cry  of 
alarm  at  our  sex  :  that  prudish  abuse  of  a  sex  from  which 
every  one  must  make  an  exception  in  favour  of  her  father 
and  her  husband.  There  is  a  kind  of  bad,  unspiritual 
modesty  that  resembles  the  stone  veil  in  a  statue  of  modesty 
by  A.  Corradini,  which,  according  to  Volkman,  hangs  down 
from  it  clearly  and  separately  as  another  body.  There  are 
certain  precipices  along  which  women,  like  mules  in 
Switzerland,  must  not  be  led  if  they  are  not  to  fall. 
Definite  warnings  against  them  serve  as  attractions  and 
lures.  Let  the  parents  shine  before  them  as  pure 
examples,  and  they  will  not  need  to  strengthen  modesty, 
the  wing-covers  of  Psyche's  wings,  with  extra  coverings. 
By  instruction  a  child  is  robbed,  in  the  first  instance,  of  her 
innocent  want  of  shame,  afterwards  of  its  silent  presence. 

What  follows  is  true,  though  in  a  less  degree,  of  other 
schools  besides  those  for  girls.  In  the  parental  dwelling 
educational  precept  is  lost  in  practice,  and  the  child,  to  the 
unspeakable  advantage  of  his  feeling  of  freedom  and  his 
quicker  susceptibility,  receives  all  moral  instruction  only 
as  the  natural  unobtrusive  accompaniment  of  his  thread  of 
life ;  in  a  school,  on  the  contrary,  the  child  feels  as  if  life 
only  served  for  instruction,  as  if  he  himself  lay  like  a  block 
of  marble,  chisels  and  hammers  passing  over  him  in  every 
direction,  from  which  so  much  was  to  be  hewn  away  that 
a  grown-up  man  should,  at  last,  rise  from  the  block.  The 
secret  parental  formation,  under  which  the  child  believed 
himself  to  be  growing  of  his  own  accord,  stands  here 
revealed  in  its  naked  aim  ;  he  feels  his  carnation  buds 
opened  with  a  penknife,  not  gently  disclosing  themselves, 
after  warm  rain,  by  their  own  native  force.  For  this  very 
reason  a  young  creature  would  scarcely  wish  to  remain 
longer  than  the  appointed  time  in  the  school-house,  but 
would  gladly  live  for  ever  in  its  parent's  home. 

Somewhat  better  than  girls'  boarding-schools  are  day- 
schools,  places  where  they  merely  receive  instruction.  It 
were  to  be  wished  that  in  both  of  these,  as  well  as  in  the 
girls'  room  at  home,  there  could  be  more  womanly  class- 
spirit  inspired,  more  love  arsd  reverence  for  their  own  sex, 


CHAP.  IV.]  LEV  ANA.  245 

and  woman's  excellence  shown  as  well  as  the  more  brilliant 
advantages  of  men.  This  leads  me  to  a  disinclination  not 
sufficiently  struggled  against  in  giris'  schools,  I  mean  that 
of  women  towards  women. 

When  Eichardson  had  put  every  means  of  torture,  or 
passion,  which  such  a  preying  shark  hides  under  his  skull 
to  use  against  women  sufferers,  into  the  head  of  that  devil 
towards  women,  Lovelace,  against  the  angel  Clarissa ;  and 
when  he  really  permitted  this  holy  virgin  to  be  crucified 
by  him,  he  could  naturally  only  expect  that  women  would 
take  the  part  of  the  sufferer,  not  of  the  beast  of  prey  ;  but, 
to  his  utter  astonishment,  every  day's  post  brought  him 
letters  from  women  entreating  the  final  happiness  of  the 
good  Lovelace,  just  as  Klopstock  received  similar  ones  for 
the  reformation  of  his  Abadonna.  Much  the  same  befel  a 
converter  of  the  heathen  in  Greenland ;  who,  after  having 
employed,  as  he  hoped,  every  admitted  power  of  eloquence 
to  depict  the  burning  heat  of  hell,  saw,  to  his  astonish- 
ment, an  ever-increasing  cheerfulness  in  the  faces  of  the 
Greenlanders ;  until  at  last,  on  descending  from  the  pul- 
pit, he  learned  that,  by  his  warm  description  of  hell,  he 
had  excited  a  special  longing  in  the  whole  congregation 
to  go  thither  as  to  a  milder  climate.  Such  a  charming 
hell  was  Lovelace  to  women,  although  a  purgatory  to 
Clarissa. 

It  almost  sounds  like  satire  to  say  that  women  are  not 
particularly  fond  of  each  other,  and  that,  with  all  their 
friendly  words  to  one  another,  they  rather  imitate  the 
nightingale,  which,  in  BeohstciJi's  opinion,*  aims  by  its 
luring  tones  to  scare  other  nightingales;  and  so  the 
assertion  of  the  schoolman,  that  they  would  rise  up  as 
men  at  the  last  day,  may  be  in  some  measure  confirmed 
by  the  nature  of  heaven,  in  which,  as  the  abode  of  eternal 
love,  women  changed  into  men  would  naturally  and  more 
readily  feel  a  universal  love  by  the  entire  absence  of  their 
own  sex.  Moreover,  we  possess  the  facts  that  the  ancient 
Boman  women  (according  to  Bottiger's  Sabina)  manifested 
a  degree  of  cruelty  towards  their  female  slaves,  and 
European  women  in  the  Indies  also  towards  theirs ;  and 
the  most  ancient  governing  sister  on  the  island  of  Lesbos 
*  See  his  Instructions  for  catching  Birdji,  1796. 


246  JEAN  PAUL   FKIEDKICH   EICHTEK.       [FKAG.  IV. 

towards  her  other  sisters,  and  even  towards  their  mothers ; 
and,  finally,  modern  mistresses  towards  their  maid  ser- 
vants ;  to  which  our  conduct  towards  our  male  domes- 
tics forms  a  noble  contrast,  so  that  we  bear  away,  to  our 
astonishment  (for  we  often  flog  servants),  the  honourable 
name  of  the  gentler  sex.  I  only  passingly  mention 
calumniation,  or  the  "  doing  to  death  by  evil  tongues," 
whereby  a  parlour  is  converted  into  a  canvassing  society 
of  the  heads  and  hearts  of  such  foredoomed  women  as  are 
not  there  drinking  tea. 

Should  we  not  then,  seriously,  exclaim,  "  Oh !  mother, 
above  all  other  things  implant  and  cherish  in  your 
daughter  a  love  and  reverence  for  her  own  sex.  Is  it 
possible  that  you  cannot  succeed  in  so  doing  if  you  show 
her  the  crown  of  noble  women  shining  gloriously  amid 
the  darkness  of  past  ages ;  the  elevating  examples  of 
united  female  friends;  and  the  relationship  of  all  their 
sex's  sisters  with  them  in  worth  and  in  danger ;  and  the 
thought  that  in  her  sex  each  honours  or  despises  the  sex 
of  her  mother;  and  the  certainty  that  as  hatred  of  humanity 
is  punished  in  misanthropes,  so  the  half  of  that  sin, 
towards  half  the  human  race,  will  be  punished  in  the 
haters  of  women  ?  "  Even  the  father  may  contribute  his 
share,  and  indeed  the  largest,  towards  this  end,  by  not 
merely  preaching  to  his  daughter  but  showing  her  more 
regard  towards  her  sisters,  as  the  mother  also  may  show 
more  love.  And,  since  no  precept  insures  the  practice  of 
any  virtue,  it  were  well  if  the  daughter  were  accus- 
tomed to  regard  in  maid-servants  not  merely  their  common 
humanity,  but  their  fellowship  with  her  in  sex. 


Some  of  the  modern  aesthetic  lithologists  would  gladly 
see  female  flowering  plants  converted  into  petrifactions : 
they  ought,  say  they,  to  repose  more  fully  on  the  rights 
of  the  stronger.  First,  however,  it  were  to  be  wished 
that  more  wood  and  kernel  were  imparted  to  the  present 
soft  spongy  character  of  men :  when  that  is  effected  the 
woman  will  enclasp  it  like  an  ivy  plant  and  form  its 
second   crown.      How  strong   in   will   women   are,   is  a 


CHAP.  IV.]  LEVANA.  247 

question  to  be  asked  not  of  lovers,  but  of  such  husbands 
as,  on  their  wedded  penitential  stools,  are  summoned  to 
Socratic  discourses  with  a  female  Socrates,  or  to  such  as 
Job's  wife  held.  In  the  love  before  marriage  the  girl 
appears  too  weakly  characterless  and  submissive ;  but 
marriage,  in  accordance  with  her  destination  for  children 
suddenly  opens,  like  a  northern  sun,  all  her  blossoms,  be 
they  those  of  an  aloe,  or  of  a  thistle.  Is  it  on  this  account 
that  most  Slavonians*  call  their  beloved,  as  the  Poles, 
indeed,  do  all  women.  The  Uncertain  ?  In  short,  the  girl 
matures  into  the  mother;  and  the  man,  who  wishes  to 
possess  in  his  wife  at  once  a  slave  and  a  goddess,  stands 
half  discomfited  by  the  change ;  the  little  that  he  can  say 
on  the  matter  consists  in  such  ideas  as  these  rather  than 
any  thing  else  :  "  He  had,  trusting  in  his  own  steadfast- 
ness, lovingly  proposed  to  himself  to  have  been  a  prop  to 
her ;  but  she  had  brought  with  her  and  packed  up  for  use 
80  much  of  her  own  that  subsequently,  between  man  and 
wife,  the  sex  was  as  difficult  to  distinguish  as  in  young 
birds  ;  which  was  God,  which  Goddess,  was,  in  his  own  case, 
as  hard  to  guess  as  in  the  early  Grecian  statues  of  deities ; 
indeed,  it  were  to  be  wished  that  the  similarity  were  less 
absolute." 

Consequently  the  will  of  girls  is  less  to  be  strengthened 
than  bent  and  polished.  Like  plastic  divinities,  women 
should  only  gently  and  mildly  express  their  feelings. 
Every  outward  and  inward  excess  is  a  blemish  in  their 
charms,  a  poison  to  their  children.  Even  a  man  chooses 
gentleness  as  the  first,  though  perhaps  not  the  second, 
mode  of  expressing  his  will  and  determination.  No  mere 
strength  goes  to  war  against  feminine  gentleness ;  so  the 
tranquil  moonshine  is  rarely  broken  by  a  storm,  though 
the  glowing  sunshine  may  be.  From  the  moment  in 
which  the  bravest  man  shall  speak  in  the  gentlest  manner 
will  sweetness  and  compliance  arise  more  and  more  in 
the  strongest  woman :  she  may  continue  to  be  a  pyramid, 
but  in  the  pyramids  is  found  a  soft  echo. 

Since  the  present  warlike  age  and  present  style  of 
German  poetry  send  women  less  to  the  flute-school  of 
gentleness  than  to  the  fighting-school  of  war,  a  few 
*  See  Anton's  Esaay  on  the  ancient  Slavonians,  vol.  i. 


248  JEAN  PAUL   FRIEDRICH   KICHTER.       [fRAG.  IV. 

sentences  added  to  this  ninetieth  section  which,  though 
not  bringing  cure,  may  yet  possibly  avert  the  evil,  will 
not  be  useless,  at  least  to  those  daughters  who  add  their 
own  character  as  a  female  water  pipe  to  our  present 
tempestuous  season. 

Passionateness  in  a  woman's  soul  is  often  found  united 
with  all  the  overflowing  fulness  of  a  deep  noble  heart,  yes 
even  with  predominant  gentleness  and  affection  ; — and  yet 
such  a  hard  adjunct  of  nature  may  draw  the  being  herself, 
and  all  who  love  or  are  loved  by  her,  into  the  most  irre- 
mediable misfortunes. 

The  usually  tranquil  female  character  is  naturally  so 
much  inclined  to  whirlwinds  of  passion  that  even  the 
laws  (those  of  Prussia  for  instance),  dreading  the  angels 
of  destruction  in  these  otherwise  mild  angels,  forbid  an 
apothecary  to  sell  poison  to  any  woman,  whereas  they 
permit  violent  men  to  procure  it.  The  laws  seem  usually 
to  consider  them  as  snow-white,  snow-dazzling,  and  snow- 
cold  Heclas  full  of  fire.  If,  now,  this  naturally  over- 
powerful  disposition  of  the  sex  be  increased  by  that  of  the 
individual,  we  behold  a  thunder-goddess,  who  beats  down 
with  waterspouts  her  little  flower- children,  not  to  mention 
her  drenched  husband,  flooded  house,  and  drowned  love. 
A  storming  motlier  is  a  contradiction  in  education,  and 
resembles  those  tropical  storms  which  injuriously  increase 
the  temperature  of  the  atmosphere;  whereas  a  storming 
father  coolingly  purifies  the  air.  To  the  child,  yet  standing 
on  his  pure,  clear  heights,  passion  perhaps  sounds  as  weak 
as  does  a  crash  to  one  ascending  lofty  mountains ;  but  in 
the  valleys  of  future  life  it  becomes  a  thunder  clap,  and 
every  fit  of  maternal  passion  returns  as  a  sevenfold  echo 
in  the  married  life  of  her  daughter.  As  I  have  above  said, 
I  do  not  refer  to  conjugal  love,  in  which,  during  these 
female  hurricanes,  the  thin  axle  of  Aphrodite's  fair  car 
breaks,  or  her  yoked  doves  tear  themselves  loose  and  fly 
away,  because  the  readers  do  not  here  require  the  poison 
to  be  shown  them,  but  its  antidote. 

This,  however,  is  not  so  close  at  hand,  as  our  discourse 
is  only  of  girls  six  or  seven  years  old.  But  to  oppose 
violence  to  violence,  to  attack  passion  by  passion,  is  to  try 
to  put  out  fijre  with  boiling  oil :  punishments,  especially 


CHAP.  IV.]  LEVANA.  249 

in  early  youth,  do  more  injury  than  the  stifling  of  the 
flames  warrants ;  to  which  must  be  added  that  punishment, 
as  is  natural,  only  affects  the  passion  when  it  has  provided 
the  match  for  a  still  greater  future  one.  Every  repetition 
of  the  fault  becomes,  in  this  case,  a  doubling  of  it,  to  which 
even  the  furrows  of  pain  act  as  inflammatory  incitements. 
As  a  physical  remedy  one  might  advise  more  vegetable 
than  animal  diet,  and  that  of  a  cooling  nature,  were  it  not 
that  advancing  years  with  their  fiery  blood  would  again 
produce  heat.  But  the  best  means  to  use  against  it  in 
early  life  are  the  prevention  of  all,  even  the  smallest, 
occasions  for  it,  or  sparks  for  the  match :  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  let  every  power  of  love,  of  patience,  of  peacefulness 
be  cherished  and  manifested  and  employed  against  that 
consuming  fire.  Commands  effect  nothing  ;  but  examples 
of  gentleness,  whether  given  or  related  in  tone  and  action, 
do  all.  The  children  of  Quakers  are  gentle  without 
punishment ;  they  see  their  parents  ever  shining  as  tranquil 
white  stars  through  the  stormy  clouds  of  foreign  environ- 
ment. 

On  the  contrary,  in  the  later  years  of  reflection  and  the 
blush  of  shame,  this  punishment  may  be  permitted,  indeed 
ordained ;  that  such  a  female  Boreas  of  fifteen  years  old 
may,  in  the  midst  of  her  roaring  storm,  openly  and  harshly 
receive  the  metaphorical  blow  in  the  face  on  her  burning 
swollen  cheeks,  which,  given  previously,  without  its 
figurative  meaning,  would  only,  as  I  have  already  said, 
have  increased  the  whole  swelling  evil. 


§  91. 

The  wife  of  a  nobleman  was  formerly  called  house-wife 
The  ancient  Britons  were  often  led  to  battle  by  brave 
women.  Many  Scandinavian  women,  according  to  Home, 
were  pirates.  A  North  American  on  the  land,  and  a 
Tarisian  woman  in  the  shop,  do  every  thing  that  with  us 
devolves  on  the  man.  Ought  it,  indeed,  to  be  sufficient  if 
a  girl  can  j-ew,  and  knit,  and  net  ?  When  Sweden,  under 
Charles  the  Twelfth,  had  sent  forth  all  her  men  at  the  call 
of  glory,  the  women  became  postmasters,  cidtivators  of  the 


250  JEAN  PAUL   FRIEDKICH   EICHTER.         [fEAG.  IV. 

land  and  overseers  of  the  public  offices.*  And  since  it  may 
possibly  happen  in  time  that  all  the  men  may  be  engaged 
in  a  war  and  peace  establishment,  it  seems  to  me  we  should 
think  more  of  educating  girls  to  be  the  conductors  of  our 
business,  and  the  managers  of  our  estates ;  for,  subsequently, 
if  the  men  were  killed,  there  might  be  another  conscription 
and  enlisting  demanded  from  the  women  than  that  under 
husbands. 

The  gymnastics  of  life  and  labour  are,  if  the  two  former 
sections  be  correct,  the  third  commandment  in  female 
education.  But  these  do  not  consist  of  so-called  ladylike 
occupations.  Sewing,  knitting,  or  spinning  with  a  Parisian 
pocket  spinning  wheel,  are  recreation  and  repose  from 
labour,  not  labour  and  exercise ;  for  that  spinning  while 
walking,  as  the  Moldavians  do  f,  at  least  must  be  oi  dered. 
Worsted  work,  this  female  mosaic  work,  not  unsuitable 
for  the  higher  classes  who  must  refresh  themselves  from 
doing  nothing  by  doing  little,  easily  converts  the  pattern 
into  a  covering  for  indisposition  or  ill  humour.  Xenophon 
tells  us  that  Lycurgus  sent  the  Spartan  women  to  the  public 
places  of  exercise,  and  only  the  slaves  to  the  embroidery 
frame  and  the  spinning  wheel.  I  do  not  reckon  as  greatest 
those  physical  disadvantages,  the  slavish  carriage  of  the 
person,  for  instance,  which  need  a  dancing-school  to  correct 
what  the  sewing-school  has  done,  for  a  watchful  mother 
might  as  easily  enforce  correct  sitting  during  the  sewing 
lesson  as  a  writing  master  can  do  during  the  writing 
lesson ;  neither  do  I  reckon  the  nerve-enfeebling,  finger- 
pricking  irritation  of  knitting ;  and  the  physical  evils  of 
a  sedentary  life  &hall  be  treated  of  hereafter.  But  most 
employments  of  the  fingers  by  which  you  attempt  to  fix 
the  female  quicksilver  have  this  injurious  effect,  that  the 
mind  left  to  idleness  rusts  away,  or  is  entirely  given  up  to 
the  waves  of  circle  after  circle  spreading  fancy.  Sewing 
and  knitting  needles,  for  instance,  keep  open  the  wounds 
of  an  unhappy  attachment  far  more  than  do  all  romances 
they  are  thorns  which  themselves  pierce  the  falling  rose. 
If  the  young  woman  have,  as  the  young  man  generally 
has,  some  occupation  which  every  moment  demands  new 

*  Memoires  secrets  sur  les  regnes  de  Louis  XIV.  par  Duclos. 
t  Suraarakoffs  Tour  in  the  Crimea 


CHAP.  IV.  J  LEVANA.  251 

thought,  the  old  one  cannot  perpetually  stand  out  in  the 
most  prominent  light.  A  change  of  occupation  is  es- 
pecially adapted  to  the  female  character,  as  the  stead;^ 
pursuit  of  one  is  to  that  of  the  man. 

Distraction,  forgetfulness,  want  of  consideration  and  of 
presence  of  mind,  are  the  first  and  worst  consequences  of 
this  sweet  internal  and  external  far  niente ;  and  a  woman 
needs  nothing  more  to  poison  the  holy  trinity  of  wedlock, 
child,  husband,  and  self.  Heavens !  how  a  young  man 
must  every  day  draw  his  thread  of  life  from  a  new  fieece, 
or  conduct  his  plans  on  their  long  journey  nearer  to  the 
goal,  while  a  young  woman  repeats  yesterday  in  to-day  as 
the  image  of  to-morrow ;  he  indeed  walks,  and  she  sits  ; 
the  one  is  permitted  to  stand,  the  other  only  to  sit. 

The  female  sex  has  such  a  preference  for  every  anchoring 
manner  of  life,  that  it  would  gladly,  as  Gerning  says  the 
Greek  women  actually  did,  carry  a  camp  stool  with  it,  so 
as  after  every  step  to  have  a  seat  ready  at  hand.  Yet  I 
should  think  women  might  be  satisfied  to  resemble  the  sun 
in  its  shining  and  warming  powers,  and  not  also  in  its 
immoveableness.  They,  in  common  with  the  sitting  pro- 
fessions, tailoring  and  shoe-making,  are  the  victims  of 
spleen  and  fanaticism.  This  sedentary  life,  full  of  noon- 
tide rests,  morning  and  afternoon  rests,  and  vesper  rests, 
in  which  great  ladies  with  full  tables  and  stomachs  in- 
dulge, gives  so  much  trouble  to  the  doctors,  running 
hither  and  thither,  that  finally  a  knowledge  of  medicine 
will  be  as  necessary  as  a  knowledge  of  French  to  every 
chevalier  d'honneur  and  chamberlain.  In  such  a  circle 
one  certainly  need  seek  few  Swiss  heroines,  not  to  mention 
that  Czekleress  from  the  district  of  Gyergyoer,  who,  in  a 
battle  with  the  Moldavians,  killed  seven  of  them  at  one 
stroke,  and  in  the  evening  returned  and  was  brought  to 
bed  of  a  son.*  This  circumstance  happened  on  the  seventh 
of  September,  1685. 

A  certain  Quoddeusvult,  in  the  (yet  unprinted)  twenty- 
third  volume  of  the  Flegeljahre,  thinks  to  find  some 
excuse,  when,  after  having  spoken  of  the  female  love  of 
flitting  and  dancing  until  he  hit  upon  a  simile  drawn  from 
those  hovering  flies  which  hover  unwaveringly  and  shoot 
*  Sapplements  of  the  A.  L.  Zeitang,  No.  19. 


252  JEAN  PAUL  FKIEDRICH  EICHTER.       [fKAG.  TV. 

down  swift  as  arrows,  he  thus  expresses  himself  concerning 
it :  "  The  reason  why  the  female  nature  loves  rest  better 
than  man's  is  less  obvious  even  in  crabs — of  which  the 
female  has  much  the  fewer  legs  under  its  tail — than  in  the 
human  foetus  itself,  for  the  boy  begins  to  move  in  the 
third,  the  girl  in  the  fourth  month.  Also  in  the  Culs  de 
Paris  is  the  sitting  mode  of  life  sufficiently  exemplified. 
But  Nature  softens  this  as  she  does  other  things ;  she 
gives  a  desire  for  sour  kraut  and  herrings  as  a  curative 
diet  to  fever  patients,  and  has  implanted  in  the  bed  and 
sofa-lying  woman,  as  well  as  in  the  lazy  savage,  the 
love  of  dancing.  As  in  a  concert,  so  in  her,  prestissimo 
follows  adagio.  I  know  not  what  is  more  necessary  to 
the  present  largo  di  mqlto  sitting  than  the  hop  furioso. 
A  ball  is  a  strengthening  snail  and  oyster  cure  for 
crawling  snails  and  sitting  oysters ;  a  the  dansant  is  the 
best  cure  for  a  tea  drinking.  The  two  medical  fingers 
tread  on  the  foot  as  ten  medical  toes ;  and  at  a  masked 
ball  the  uncovered  lady  has  her  pestilence  preserver  in  her 
hand,  as  the  plague  doctors  formerly  went  about  in  wax 
masks.  If  you  want  ladies  to  go  faster  than  posts  and 
couriers,  arrange  an  English  country  dance  between 
Leipsig  and  Dessau,  and  let  the  girls  '  chassez,'  then  see 
who  arrives  first,  the  post  or  the  dancers," — and  so  on. 
For  however  true  some  of  it  may  be,  it  is  yet  better  placed 
where  it  is,  in  the  twenty-third  volume. 

This  love  of  sitting  also  affects  the  minor  branches  of 
family  and  household  affairs,  in  which  women  often  permit 
and  neglect  matters  merely  not  to  have  to  rise  from  their 
seats :  they  unwillingly  purchase  the  exercise  of  their 
children  with  their  own,  or  willingly  delay  physical,  and 
force  mental,  growth.  In  London  ringing  twice  summons 
the  footman,  thrice  the  chambermaid,  apparently  to  give 
time  to  the  sex. 

§92. 

Now  how  can  this  be  obviated  ?  Just  as  it  is  obviated 
among  the  lower  classes.  Let  a  girl,  instead  of  her  dreamy 
monotonous  finger- work,  manage  the  business  of  the  house- 
hold, which  every  moment  restrains  dreaminess  and 
absence  of  mind  by  new  duties  and  calls  on  the  attention ; 


CHAP.  IV.J  LEVANA.  253 

in  early  years  let  her  be  emploj'ed  in  every  thing  from 
cooking  to  gardening  ;  when  older,  from  the  management 
of  the  servants  to  keeping  the  accounts.  \Yhat  a  minister  is 
in  a  small  state  that  a  woman  is  in  her  lesser  state;  namely, 
the  minister  of  all  departments  at  once,  the  husband 
managing  the  foreign  aifairs ;  more  especially  is  she  the 
minister  of  finance,  who,  in  the  state,  in  the  last  resort, 
according  to  Goethe,  regulates  peace,  as  well  as,  according 
to  Archenholz,  the  magazines  of  war.  Even  noble  ladies 
would  be  healthier  and  happier  if  they  fulfilled  the  duties 
of  maitre  d'hotel  and  femme  de  charge,  I  mean  for  the 
house:  I  know  they  frequently  act  in  both  capacities  for 
their  husbands.  Certainly,  as  a  whole,  the  females  of  the 
higher  classes  are  rendered  more  delicately  beautiful  by 
this  absolute  idleness ;  but  such  a  Venus  resembles  that  of 
Rome,  who  was  also  the  goddess  of  corpses  ;  among  these 
may  be  reckoned  her  children,  her  husband,  or  herself.  I 
do  not  speak  about  the  art  of  cookery,  in  order  not  to  be 
laughed  at,  as  Kant  was  who  wished  that  here  (as  in 
Scotland)  regular  lessons  should  be  given  in  it  as  well 
as  in  dancing.  Rather  will  Seneca's  beautiful  words 
addressed  to  sacrificers — "  Puras  Deus,  non  plenas  adspicit 
manus  "  (God  regards  pure  not  full  hands) — acquire  a  new 
meaning  with  noble  ladies ;  and  they  will  suppose  their 
husbands  value  pure  white  hands  more  than  those  which 
present  them  some  good  dish  they  have  cooked. 

But  how  is  it  that  in  the  order  of  female  r&uk  her  real 
title,  housewife,  is  not  esteemed  higher  ?  Is  it  not  in  that 
capacity  that  as  once  physically,  so  now  financially,  she 
prepares  a  freer  future  for  her  children  ?  And  can  a  woman 
find  that  in  detail  beneath  her  regard,  in  which,  as  a  whole, 
the  greatest  of  men,  a  Cato  of  L  tica,  a  Sully,  and  others, 
sought  their  glory  ?  Once  for  all,  the  household  must  be 
managed  in  some  way;  and  is  it  better  that  the  husband 
should  add  this  extra  weight  to  his  out-of-door  duties  ?  If 
so,  I  should  merely  be  lost  in  astonishment  that  the 
women — for  the  thing  is  practicable,  as  Humboldt  and 
others  have  seen  examples  of  it  among  the  men  in  South 
America— do  not  commit  to  our  charge  the  reasonable 
and  easy  duty  of  suckling  the  children.  After  a  little 
creative  practice  there  might  be  male  instead  of  female, 


254  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   RICHTER,      [fRAG.  IV. 

wet-nurses ;  the  ministers,  presidents,  and  other  principals 
(the  children  carried  after  them  into  court)  would  stand 
it  better  than  the  women,  &c.  &c. 

For  the  rest,  let  no  more  flighty  than  intellectual 
woman  declare  that  housekeeping,  as  a  mechanical  affair,  is 
beneath  the  dignity  of  her  mind,  and  she  would  rather  be 
as  mentally  happy  as  a  man.  Is  there,  then,  any  mental 
work  without  hand  work  ?  Do  accountants'  offices, 
secretaries'  rooms,  the  military  parade,  places  of  govern- 
ment set  the  hands  less  in  motion  than  the  kitchen  and 
household  affairs,  or  is  it  merely  that  they  do  so  in  a 
different  way?  Can  the  mind  show  itself  earlier,  or 
otherwise,  than  behind  the  mask  of  the  laborious  body  ? 
for  instance,  the  ideal  of  the  sculptor  otherwise  than  after 
millions  of  blows  and  chisel-strokes  on  the  marble  ?  Or 
can  this  present  Levana  appear  in  the  world  and  in  print 
unless  I  make  pens,  dip  them  in  the  ink  and  draw  them 
up  and  down  ? 

Ye  holy  women  of  German  antiquity  !  ye  knew  as  little 
of  an  ideal  heart  as  of  the  circulation  of  the  pure  blood 
which  flushed  and  warmed  you  when  you  said,  "I  do  it  for 
my  husband,  for  my  children ;''  you,  with  your  anxieties 
and  cares,  seeming  only  subordinate  and  prosaic  !  But  the 
holy  ideal  descended  through  you,  as  heaven's  fire  through 
clouds,  upon  the  earth.  The  mystic  Guyon,  who  in  a 
hospital  took  on  himself  and  fulfilled  the  duties  of  a 
loathing  maid  servant,  has  a  higher  throne  among  glorified 
souls  than  the  general  who,  with  the  arms  of  others,  yea, 
and  with  his  own,  makes  wounds  which  he  does  not  heal. 
All  strength  lies  within,  not  without ;  and  whether  a  poet 
on  his  printed  sheet,  or  a  conqueror  on  his  missives  and 
treaty-i^apers  divide  and  unite  countries,  the  difference  is 
only  externally  so  great  as  that  between  all  and  nothing  : 
I  mean  to  the  vulgar. 

§93. 

Women  are  by  nature  intended  for  people  of  business : 
they  are  called  to  it  by  the  equal  balance  of  their  powers 
and  their  keen  sense  of  observation.  Children  require  an 
ever-open  eye,  but  not  an  ever-open  mouth :  claude  os,  apen 
oculos.     But  what  circle  of  talking,  which  always  encloses 


CHAP.  IV.]  LEVANA.  255 

only  small  and  trifling  relations,  could  so  well  exercise 
that  ever-present  glance  as  the  circle  of  domestic  afiairs  ? 
Boys  destined  for  certain  occupations,  to  be  artists, 
professors,  or  mathematicians,  may  dispense  with  a 
capacity  for  business,  but  never  a  girl  who  will  marfy, — 
especiallj^  one  of  the  above-mentioned  boys.  Above  all 
things  must  that  wandering  or  absence  of  mind  be  strictly 
combated  which  is  no  fault  of  nature,  but  solely  of  the 
individual,  and  is  never  the  determining  condition  of  any 
superior  power.  Every  dissipation  of  mind  is  partial 
weakness.  For  instance,  were  the  poet  or  philosopher 
who  wanders  about  so  absently  in  the  outer  world,  which 
is  foreign  to  his  sphere  of  action,  to  work  with  equal  want 
of  reflection  in  his  inner  world,  which  alone  he  has  to 
observe  and  govern,  he  would  certainly  be  either  mad  or 
useless.  The  same  thing  is  true  in  the  opposite  case ;  if  a 
woman,  indifferent  to  the  outer  practical  world  in  which 
her  business  lies,  neglects  it  for  the  sake  of  the  inner.  If, 
now,  a  girl  is  intended  to  grow  up  with  a  clear  eye  for 
every  thing  round  her, — if  she  is  not  to  waste  her  many 
eyes  in  company,  as  Argus  did  his,  by  misplacing  them  as 
painted  eyes  in  a  peacock's  tail ;  or  if  she  is  not,  like 
that  sea  fish,  the  turbot,  to  have  two  eyes  on  the  right  side, 
but,  in  compensation,  to  be  blind  on  the  left, — let  her 
be  many-sidedly  exercised  in  household  affairs ;  and  the 
parents  must  not  be  disturbed  if  some  admirer  of  an  ethereal 
bride  should  find  fault  with  her,  as  Plato  did  with  Eudoxus, 
for  having  profaned  pure  mathematics  by  applying  them 
to  mechanics ;  for  to-day  or  to-morrow  the  wedding  comes, 
and  the  husband,  the  honey-moon  being  past,  kisses  the 
mother's  hand  for  all  that  the  daughter  does  beyond  his 
expectations. 

§94. 

Let  every  thing  be  taught  a  girl  which  forms  and 
exercises  the  habit  of  attention,  and  the  power  of  judging 
things  by  the  eye.  Consequently  botany, — this  inexhaust- 
ible, tranquil,  ever-interesting  science  attaching  the  mind 
to  nature  with  bonds  of  flowers.  Then  astronomy,  not 
the  properly  mathematical,  but  th3  Lichtenbergiau  and 


256  JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRICH  EICHTER.       [fRAG.  IV 

religious,  whicli  with  tlie  expansion  of  the  universe 
expands  the  mind ;  along  with  which  it  does  no  harm  if  a 
girl  experiences  why  a  longest  night  is  advantageous  to 
sleep,  a  full  moon  to  love.  I  should  also  even  recommend 
mathematics;  but  here,  unfortunately,  women  who  have  a 
Fontenelle  for  astronomy  have  not  one  for  mathematics  ; 
for,  with  regard  to  girls,  I  only  mean  those  simplest 
principles  of  pure  and  mixed  mathematics  which  boys  can 
understand.  And  geometry  itself,  as  a  second  eye,  or 
dioptric  line,  which  brings  as  distinct  separations  into  the 
world  of  matter  as  Kant  has  done  by  his  categories  into 
the  world  of  mind,  may  also  be  commenced  early ;  for 
geometrical  observations,  unlike  philosophical,  strain  the 
mind  to  the  injury  of  the  body  as  little  as  the  external 
sense  of  sight.  Sculptors  and  painters  study  mathematics 
as  the  skeleton  of  visible  beauty  without  injury  to  their 
sense  of  beauty  :  I  know  a  little  girl  of  two  years  and  a 
half  old  who  recognised,  in  the  full  foliage  of  nature,  the 
dry  paper  skeleton  of  the  mathematical  figures  which  she 
had  learned  to  draw  in  play.  In  the  same  way  these  little 
beings  have  early  developed  powers  of  calculation, 
especially  for  the  important  part  of  mental  arithmetic. 
Why  are  they  not  also  taught  a  multiplication  table  for 
the  reduction  of  the  various  kinds  of  money  and  yard 
measurements  ? 

Philosophy  is  something  quite  different,  indeed  dia- 
metrically opposite.  Why  should  these  lovers  of  wisdom 
and  of  wise  men  learn  it  ?  A  lottery  ticket  with  a  great 
premium  has  been  occasionally  drawn  from  among  this  sex 
— a  true  born  poetess ;  but  a  philosopheress  would  have 
broken  up  the  lottery.  A  woman  of  genius — Madame 
Chatelet — may  understand  Newton  in  English,  and  render 
him  into  French ;  but  none  could  do  that  in  German 
for  Kant  or  Schelling.  The  most  spiritual-minded  and 
intellectual  women  have  a  way  of  their  own,  a  certainty 
of  understanding  the  most  profound  philosophers,  which 
even  their  very  scholars  despairingly  aim  at— namely,  thej 
find  every  thing  easy,  especially  their  own  thoughts,  that 
is  feelings.  In  the  ever-changing  atmosphere  of  their 
fancy  they  meet  with  every  most  finely-drawn  skeleton  of 
the  philosophers  ;  just  like  many  poetical  followers  of  the 


CHAP.  IV.]  LEVANA.  257 

new  schools  of  philosophy  who,  instead  of  a  clearly  defined 
circle,  give  us  a  fantastic  wreath  of  vapour. 

Geography,  as  a  mere  registry  of  places,  is  utterly 
worthless  for  mental  development,  and  of  little  use  to 
women  in  their  vocations ;  on  the  contrary,  that  is  indis- 
pensable which,  teaching  the  enduring  living  history  of 
the  earth — in  opposition  to  that  which  is  transitory  and 
dead — is  at  once  the  history  of  humanity,  which  divides 
itself  into  nations  as  well  as  into  contemporaneous  historic 
periods,  and  also  that  of  the  globe  itself,  which  converts 
the  twelve  months  into  twelve  contemporaneous  spaces. 
The  mind  of  a  girl  attached  to  her  chair  and  her  birth- 
place, like  an  enchanted  princess  in  a  castle,  must  be 
delivered  and  led  forth  to  clearer  prospects  by  the  de- 
scriptions of  travellers.  I  wish  some  one  would  give  us 
a  comprehensive  selection  of  the  best  travels  and  voyages 
round  the  world,  shortened  and  adapted  for  the  use  of 
girls;  if  the  editor  were  well  furnished  with  Herder's 
patience  and  insight  into  the  most  dissimilar  nations,  J 
know  of  no  more  valuable  present  to  the  sex.  With  regard 
to  descriptions  of  places,  every  station  requires  a  ditferent 
one,  a  merchant's  daughter  one  very  unlike  that  provided 
for  a  princess. 

Almost  all  this  equally  applies  to  petrified  history, 
which  only  conducts  from  one  past  age  into  another.  For 
a  girl  it  can  scarcely  be  too  barren  in  dates  and  names. 
How  many  emperors  in  the  whole  history  of  German 
emperors  are  for  a  girl  ?  On  the  other  hand,  it  cannot  be 
sufficiently  rich  -in  great  men  and  great  events,  which 
elevate  the  soul  above  the  petty  histories  of  towns  and 
suburbs. 

Music,  vocal  and  instrumental,  is  natural  to  the  femaJie 
mind  and  is  the  Orphean  lute  which  leads  her  uniniui*e«i 
past  many  siren  sounds,  and  accompanies  her  with  its 
echo  of  youth  far  into  the  autumn  of  wedded  life.  Drawing, 
on  the  contrary,  if  carried  beyond  the  first  principles, 
which  educate  the  eye  and  taste  in  dress  more  perfectl)', 
steals  too  much  time  from  the  husband  and  childrei:  • 
therefore  it  is  usually  a  lost  art. 

One  foreign  language  is  necessary,  and  at  the  same 
time  quite  enough,  for  the  scientific  explanation  of  her 

L  S 


258  JEAN   PAUL   FEIEDEICH   HICHTFB.        [fRAG.  ivi 

own.  Unfortunately  French  pushes  itself  most  promi- 
nently forward,  because  a  woman  really  must  learn  it  to 
comply  with  the  necessities  consequent  on  the  billeting 
of  French  soldiers.  I  would  wish — why  should  one  not 
wish,  that  is,  do  every  day  of  the  year  what  one  does  on 
the  first? — that  a  selection  of  English,  Italian,  i.atin 
words  were  placed  before  every  girl  as  an  exercise  in 
reading,  so  that  she  might  understand  when  she  heard 
them. 

The  talking  and  writing  world  has  sent  into  circulation 
so  large  a  foreign  treasury  of  scientific  words  that  girls, 
who  do  not,  like  boys,  learn  the  words  along  with  the 
sciences,  should  have  weekly  lessons  in  them  out  of  a 
scientific  dictionary,  or  translate  into  comprehensible 
phrases  tules  in  which  such  anti-Campean  words  are  pur- 
posely employed.  I  wish  that  for  this  end  an  octavo 
volume  full  of  foreign  words,  with  an  explanatory  ency- 
clopsedia  to  them,  were  published.  The  best  women  read 
dreaming  (the  rest  truly  sleeping) ;  they  pass  gliding  as 
easily  over  the  mountains  of  a  metaphysical  book  as 
sailors  do  over  the  mountainous  waves  of  the  ocean. 
None  of  them  ever  thinks  of  asking  the  dictionary, 
nay,  not  even  her  husband,  what  any  word  means;  but 
this  vow  of  silence  which  regards  asking  questions  as  a 
forbidden  game,  this  contentment  with  dark  thoughts, 
which  possibly  learns  in  the  twentieth  book  the  meaning 
of  a  scientific  term  used  in  the  second,  ought  to  be  pre- 
vented.    Else  they  will  read  books  as  they  listen  to  men. 

There  is  one  charm  which  all  girls  might  possess,  and 
which  frequently  not  one  in  a  provincial  town  does 
possess;  which  equally  enchants  him  who  has,  and  hiin 
who  has  it  not;  which  adorns  the  features  and  every 
word,  and  which  remains  imperishable  (nothing  can  exist 
longer)  while  a  woman  speaks; — I  mean  the  pronunciation 
itself,  the  pure  German  indicating  no  birthplace.  I 
entreat  you,  mothers,  to  take  lessons  in  pure  German 
enunciation  and  to  rehearse  them  constantly  with  your 
daughters.  I  assure  you — to  place  the  matter  on  a  firmer 
foundation — that  a  vulgar  pronunciation  always  rather 
reminds  one  of  a  vulgar  condition,  because,  in  general,  the 
higher  the  rank  the  better   is  the  pronunciation,  though 


CHAP.  IV.J  LEVANA.  259 

not  always  the  language.  The  higher  ranks,  contrary  to 
Adelung's  change  of  words,  are  not  the  best  musical 
artistij  of  language  (composei-s),  but  they  are  the  best 
deliverers  of  it  (virtuosi). 

Girls,  unlike  authoresses,  cannot  write  too  much.  It  is 
as  though  on  paper,  this  final  metamorphosis  of  their  dear 
flax,  they  themselves  experienced  one,  and,  in  the  back- 
ward viewing  of  the  rough  and  smooth  external  world, 
won  space  and  rest  for  their  own  inner  world ;  so  often  in 
lettei-8  and  diaries  do  we  find  women,  the  most  ordinary 
in  conversation,  reveal  an  unexpected  spiritual  heaven. 
But  the  theme  on  which  gtnd  for  which  they  write  must 
not  be  one  drawn  from  a  learned  caprice,  but  from  the 
observation  of  life — for  their  sensations  and  thoughts 
depend  upon  climate  far  more  than  those  of  boys;  of 
course  I  speak  of  real  letters  and  their  own  diaries,  not 
mere  exercises.  From  this  cause — that  an  appointed  goal 
marked  and  restrained  their  course — the  author  has  re- 
ceived so  many  eloquent,  profound  and  brilliant  letters 
from  feminine,  nay,  masculine,  minds,  that  he  has  often 
exclaimed  in  vexation,  "  If  only  five  authoresses  wrote  as 
well  as  twenty  lady-letter-writers,  or  twenty  authors  as 
well  as  forty  correspondents,  literature  would  be  of  some 
value!" 

§  95. 

The  greatest  part  of  the  above  will  help  to  form  female 
power  in  connection  with  female  mind,  activity  along 
with  gentleness  :  not  only  in  marriage,  but  in  the  woman 
herself,  ought  there  to  be  a  reflection  of  that  heavenly 
jKxliac  in  which  the  Lion  shines  beside  the  Virgin. 
Intellect  acts  democratically  on  the  mind ;  feeling,  mon- 
archically.  Any  circumstance,  even  dressing  for  a  ball, 
seizes  on  a  woman,  like  the  Romans  on  the  Sabines,  and 
tears  her  fnjm  her  inner  world.  One  who  before  the 
toilet  for  the  ball  can  think  of  any  thing  better  loses  mar)y 
more  inches  of  mental  elevation.  The  present  governs 
none  more  powerfully  with  one  single  idea  than  minds 
which  step  dazzled  out  of  their  little  dream-cell  into  the 
clear  daylight. 

8  2 


260  JEAN   PAUL   FEIEDEICH   KICHTER.       [PRAG.  IV. 

On  this  is  grounded  the  well  known  experience  that 
they  are  never  ready  till  it  is  too  late,  and  have  always 
forgotten  something.  But  how  easy  were  it  to  send  a 
daughter  every  week  into  the  struggling  school  of  im- 
provement !  Let  the  father  say,  "  Dear  Nanny,  Fanny,  or 
Annie,  if  you  are  ready  dressed  in  one  hour  you  shall 
dance  to-day."  In  a  similar  way  he  might  cure  them  of 
forgetfulness  and  want  of  punctuality  by  pleasure  parties, 
as  stipulated  rewards  for  immediate  cessation  from  their 
occupations  and  quick  packing  up  of  all  necessaries. 

§  96. 

There  is  just  as  much  to  be  said  against  the  vanity  of 
women  as  against  the  pride  of  men ;  that  is,  just  as  little. 
Charms,  which  like  flowers  lie  on  the  surface  and  always 
glitter,  easily  produce  vanity  ;  hence  women,  wits,  players, 
soldiers  are  vain^  :)wing  to  their  presence,  figure  and  di  ess. 
On  the  contrar;^ ,  other  excellences,  which  lie  deep  down 
like  gold  and  are  only  discovered  with  difficulty,  strength, 
profoundness  of  intellect,  morality,  leave  their  possessors 
modest  and  proud.  Nelson  could  become  just  as  vain  by 
decorations  and  the  loss  of  his  eye  and  arm,  as  proud  by 
his  cool  bravery.  No  man  can  with  sufficient  liveliness 
place  himself  in  the  position  of  a  beautiful  woman  who 
carrying  her  nose,  her  eyes,  her  figure,  her  complexion,  as 
sparkling  jewels  through  the  streets,  blinds  one  eye  after 
another  with  her  dazzling  brilliance,  and  risks  no  capital 
in  exchange  for  her  profits.  Contrariwise  the  very  clever 
and  learned  rector  creeps  behind  her,  like  a  man  chained 
and  imprisoned,  covering  his  inner  pearls  with  two  thick 
shells ;  and  no  one  knows  what  he  knows,  but  the  man 
himself  must  admire  and  dazzle  himself  only. 

The  desire  to  please  with  some  good  quality  which  rules 
only  in  the  visible  or  external  kingdom  is  so  innocent  and 
right  that  the  opposite,  to  be  indifferent,  or  disagreeable,  to 
the  eye  or  ear,  would  even  be  wrong.  Why  should  a 
painter  dress  to  please  the  eye,  and  not  his  wife  ? — I  grant 
you  there  is  a  poisonous  vanity  and  love  of  approbation ; 
that,  namely,  which  lowers  the  inner  kingdom  to  an 
outer  one,  spreads  out  sentiments  as  snaring  nets  for  the 


CHAP.  IV.J  LEVANA,  261 

eye  and  ear,  and  degradingly  buys  and  sells  itself  with 
that  which  has  real  inherent  value.  Let  a  girl  try  to  please 
with  her  appearance  and  her  dress,  but  never  with  holy 
sentiments ;  a  so-called  fair  devotee,  who  knew  that  she 
was  so  and  therefore  knelt,  would  worship  nothing  save 
herself,  the  devil  and  her  admirer.  Every  mother,  and 
every  friend  of  the  family,  should  keep  a  careful  watch 
over  tneir  own  wish  to  praise — often  as  dangerous  as  that 
to  blame — which  so  easily  names  and  praises  an  unconscious 
grace  in  the  expre^ions  of  the  heart,  in  the  mien,  or  in  the 
sentiments,  and  thereby  converts  it  for  ever  into  a  con- 
scious one ;  that  is  to  say,  kills  it.  The  counting  of  his 
subjects  lost  them  to  David.  The  gold  presented  by  demon 
hands  vanishes  when  spoken  of.  While  man  finds  a 
cothurnus  on  which  to  raise  and  show  himself  to  the  world 
in  the  judge's  seat,  literary  rank,  the  professor's  chair  or 
the  car  of  victory,  woman  has  nothing  save  her  outward 
appearance  whereon  to  raise  and  display  her  inner  nature  ; 
why  pull  from  under  her  this  lowly  foot-stool  of  Venus  ? 
And  as  man  stands  in  some  college  or  corporate  body,  as 
in  an  assurance  office  for  the  maintenance  of  his  honour, 
but  woman  only  asserts  the  lonely  woiih  of  her  own 
individuality,  she  must  attach  herself  to  it  all  the  more 
strongly.  Perhaps  this  is  a  second  reason  why  women 
cannot  endure  modified  praise ;  for  the  first  is  surely  this, 
that  from  want  of  self  division,  and  owing  to  their  constant 
subjection  to  the  present,  which  always  presents  the  bitter 
more  powerfully  than  the  sweet,  they  are  more  sensitive 
to  the  limits  set  to  the  praise  than  to  the  praise  itself. 

We  will  now  pass  to  the  clothes-devil,  as  the  old  theo- 
logians formerly  called  the  toilet. 

What  else  does  a  woman's  dressing-room  signify  than 
the  attiring-room  of  a  theatre?  And  why,  then,  are 
there  so  many  sermons  against  it  ? 

The  preachers  do  not  sufficiently  bear  in  mind  the  fol- 
lowing considerations  :  to  a  woman  her  dress  is  the  third 
organ  of  the  soul  (the  body  is  the  second,  and  the  brain 
the  first),  and  every  upper  garment  is  one  organ  more. 
Why?  Because  the  body,  her  true  wedding-gift,  is  more 
completely  one  with  her  destination  than  ours  is  with 
ours ;    while  ours  is  rather  a  pilgrim's  or  miner's  dross 


262  JEAN  PAUL   FEIEDEICH  RICHTEE.        [fHAG.  IV^. 

with  its  protecting  apron,  hers  is  a  coronation  robe,  a 
court  suit.  It  is  the  holy  relic  of  an  invisible  saint  which 
cannot  be  sufficiently  worshipped  and  adorned;  and  the 
touch  of  this  holy  body  works  all  kinds  of  miracles.  To 
cut  off  a  man's  hand  was  in  early  ages  scarcely  less 
dangerous  than  to  touch  a  woman's,  on  which  pressure  the 
Salic  law  lays  a  fine  of  fifteen  gold  pieces ;  a  violent  kiss 
formed  the  ground  for  a  criminal  indictment;  and  in 
Hamburg  there  is  still  a  fine  of  twopence  on  every  kiss 
imprinted  in  a  work-shop.  Hence  dress  and  ornament 
must  be  as  important  to  women  as  varnish  to  paintings ; 
they  must  regard  them  as  a  multiplication  of  their  surfaces 
or  facets.  Hence  for  the  most  part  women  visit  a  lying- 
in-state  to  see  how  people  look  under  the  ground  among 
the  dead.  Perhaps  the  love  of  dress  may  be  among  the 
causes  of  our  having  had  great  female  painters,  but  no 
great  female  musicians  ;  for  a  great  space  in  women's  pic- 
tures is  filled  with  dress,  but  in  music  they  think  they 
cannot  be  sufficiently  seen  unless  they  sing.  Hence,  also, 
light  falls  on  the  female  art  of  putting  on  a  shawl  of  a 
Hamilton.  Even  in  old  age  and  on  the  sick  bed,  of  both 
which  a  man  takes  advantage  to  make  himself  comfortable 
in  night-cap  and  dressing-gown,  they  still  put  on  an  orna- 
mental costume,  not  to  please  men  but  to  please  themselves  : 
in  the  most  secret  coffin  of  the  most  lonely  Carthusian 
convent  of  La  Trappe  they  will  not  be  behind  the  exhumed 
corpses  of  Pompeii,  which  advantageously  display  them- 
selves to  posterity  in  ornaments  and  ear-rings.  If  there 
were  a  Miss  Robinson  Crusoe  on  a  desolate  island,  with  no 
one  to  please  but  her  own  reflection  in  the  water,  she 
would  yet  every  day  make  and  wear  the  newest  fashions. 
How  little  they  make  themselves  into  artificial  work  and 
three-cased  watches  for  the  sake  of  men  may  be  seen  in 
the  fact  that  they  never  dress  more  carefully  than  for 
ladies'  parties,  where  every  one  studies  and  vexes  the 
rest. 

Unembarrassed  by  witnesses,  each  one  places  herself 
before  her  ideal  world — the  mirror — and  dresses  the  bridal 
pair.  Formerly,  in  France,  every  woman  carried  a  glass 
on  her  person,  apparently  to  be  more  agreeable  to  her 
friends,  and  to  indemnify  them  by  their  own  pictures  for 


CHAP.  IV.J  LEVANA.  263 

the  bearer  of  them.  In  Germany,  in  olden  time,  a  mirror 
was  bound  up  with  the  hymn-books — why  is  it  not  so  now  ? 
Pity  that  such  loss  of  the  divine  image  should  be  caused 
by  the  want  of  a  looking-glass  ! 

On  this  same  ground  of  natural  destination  not  even  the 
cleverest  can  pardon  the  censure  of  her  personal  appear- 
ance ;  she  even  values  its  praise  more  highly  than  that  of 
her  mind.  From  the  time  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth  the 
French  kings  have  sworn  never  to  forgive  two  things, 
both  perpetrable  only  between  man  and  man,  the  duel  and 
something  worse.  Women  will  willingly  forgive  all  save 
one  thing ;  not,  indeed,  the  denying  of  their  charms,  but 
the  loud  proclamation  of  some  deformity  or  want  of  personal 
attraction.  And  every  man's  tongue  which  could  declare 
such  a  thing  is  immorally  cruel.  Woman,  more  subject 
to  the  sensuous  present,  to  appearance  and  opinion  than 
we  are,  must  painfully  feel  her  affirmed  unsightliness  to 
have,  as  her  beauty  has,  a  wide  extending  influence.  I 
should  even  consider  this  very  speaking  of  it  cruel  did  I  not 
know  from  my  own  experience,  as  well  as  from  that  of 
others,  that  a  woman's  lovely  heart  as  completely  effaces 
all  external  blots  as  an  unlovely  one  does  all  personal 
charms ;  and  that  a  fair  soul  has  at  most  only  the  first 
moment,  but  a  foul  one  the  whole  future,  to  dread. 
Woman's  body  is  the  pearl  oyster;  whether  this  be 
brilliant  and  many-coloured,  or  rough  and  dark  from  the 
place  of  its  birth,  yet  the  pure  white  pearl  within  alone 
gives  it  value.  I  mean  by  this  thy  heart,  thou  good 
maiden,  thou  who  expectest  not  to  be  appreciated,  but 
only  to  be  misunderstood  ! 

From  the  destination  of  women  may  possibly  be  derived 
the  greater  coldness  and  severity  with  which  women  of 
rank  treat  their  female  domestics ;  they  cannot  conceal 
•from  themselves  many  resemblances  and  many  possi- 
bilities of  exchanged  circumstances  ;  in  which  husbands, 
to  whom  more  is  attributed  in  the  proposition  of  in- 
^flEerence  than  in  that  of  contradiction,  readily  confirm 
-them.  Women,  especially  beauties,  regard  very  little  the 
diflference  of  mental  cultivation ;  men  that  only  in  regard 
to  their  servants ;  and  Pompev,  assured  of  his  victory,  did 
not  inquire  whether  his  cook  looked  as  he  did. 


264  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDEICH   EICHTER.        FfRAG.  IV 

Woman's  love  of  dress  has,  along  with  cleai^liness  which 
dwells  on  the  very  borders  between  physical  nature  and 
morality,  a  next-door  neighbour  in  purity  of  heart.  Why 
are  all  girls  who  go  out  to  meet  princes  with  addresses 
and  flowers  dressed  in  white?  The  chief  colour  of  the 
mentally  and  physically  pure  English  women  is  white. 
Hess  found  white  linen  most  used  in  free  countries  ;  and  I 
find  states  all  the  more  modest  the  freer  they  are.  I  will 
become  no  surety  for  the  inner  purity  of  a  woman  who,  as 
a  counterpart  to  the  Dominicans  who  wear  white  in  the 
cloister  but  black  when  abroad,  only  puts  on  the  colour  of 
purity  when  walking  in  the  streets. 

I  might  speak  of  the  wardrobe — the  female  library ;  for 
our  white  cloth  consists  of  black  on  white.  I  might  also 
ask  whether  girls  do  not  love  clothes  more  on  this  account; 
because  they  make  many  of  them,  and  consequently  enjoy 
all  the  more  heartily  a  garment  they  have  made  in  their 
own  little  summer-house.  But  the  more  immediate 
question  is,  how  the  water-shoots  of  a  flowering  branch 
engrafted  by  nature  are  to  be  repressed  or  cut  off? 

Animate  the  heart,  and  it  no  longer  thirsts  for  common 
air,  but  for  ether.  No  one  is  less  vain  than  a  bride. 
Mark  out  for  your  daughter  any  long  course  to  some 
important  business  and  she  will  look  the  seldomer  about 
her.  A  true  work  takes  possession  of  the  author  as 
well  as  afterwards  of  the  reader — neither  thinks  any  more 
about  himself.  In  a  sea-fight  no  Nelson  is  vain;  in  a 
land-fight,  no  Alcibiades ;  in  a  council  of  state,  no  Kaunitz. 

Let  a  daughter  learn  and  exemplify  the  artistic  charm 
of  dress  on  other  persons. 

Treat  her  as  an  artistic  mannikin  and  lay  the  value  on 
the  product  itself;  she  may  then  regard  herself  as  an 
actress  who  does  not  become  a  queen  by  means  of  her 
dress.  Costly  clothes  make  much  vainer  than  pretty 
ones. 

Do  not  permit  nurses,  ladies'  maids  and  such-like  locusts, 
to  praise  and  deify  the  dressed-up  girl :  yes,  even  keep  a 
sharp  eye  on  her  play-fellows,  especially  those  of  lower 
rank ;  because  they  readily  lose  their  astonishment  at  the 
fine  dress  in  admiration  of  the  wearer. 

Ascribe  to  cleanliness,  symmetry,  propriety  of  dress,  and 


CHAP.  IV.J  LEVANA.  265 

all  the  aesthetic  requisites  of  beauty,  their  brilliant  and 
true  worth ;  so  a  daughter,  like  a  poet,  forgets  herself  in 
her  art  and  in  her  ideal,  and  her  own  beauty  in  what  is 
beautiful.  She  will  be  a  painter  who  paints  herself — 
whom  not  the  original,  but  the  copy,  charms.  Finally, 
if  the  mothers  are  not  their  own  incessant  purveyors  of 
fashionable  dress,  nor  a  fruitless  tulip-bed  of  modish 
colours,  much,  if  not  all,  is  done  for  the  daughters. 


§97. 

1  could  -vvrite  a  whole  paragraph  merely  in  favour  of 
cheerfulness  and  merriment  in  girls,  and  dedicate  it  to 
mothers  who  so  frequently  forbid  them.  But  seriously  to 
assure  girls  they  may  laugh  on  suitable  occasions  would 
look  very  much  like  presenting  them  an  opportunity  of 
doing  so.  Mothers  have  much  a  habit  of  grumbling,  even 
though  they  may  smile  inwardly ;  the  daughters,  on  the 
contrary,  generally  only  laugh  visibly.  The  former  have 
passed  out  of  the  triumphant  church  of  virgins  into  the 
church  militant  of  matrons ;  their  growing  duties  have 
increased  their  seriousness ;  the  bridegroom  is  changed 
from  a  honey-bird,  who  invited  them  to  the  sweets  of  the 
honey-moon,  into  a  resolute  honey-hunting  bear,  who  will 
himself  have  the  honey. 

Then  all  the  more,  0  mothers !  grant  these  dear  light- 
hearted  beings  their  sports  around  the  flowers ;  their 
minute's  play  before  long  years  of  serious  duties.  Why 
may  not  comedy  precede  tragedy,  with  them,  as  with  the 
Bomans  ?  If  the  boy  may  be  a  zephyr,  why  may  not  the 
girl  be  a  zephyrette  ?  Is  there  in  the  whole  range  of  life 
any  thing  so  beautiful,  so  poetical,  as  the  laughing  and 
joking  of  a  maiden  who,  still  in  the  full  harmony  of  all 
er  powers,  plays  with  every  thing  in  luxurious  freedom, 
and  neither  mocks  nor  hates  when  she  jests  ?  For  girls, 
the  antipodes  of  fish,  which,  as  is  well  known,  are  not 
only  deaf  but  also  possess  no  diaphragm,  have  and  impart 
the  true  sportiveness  of  poetry,  so  difficult  for  authors  to 
imitate,  so  unlike  satire  and  the  humour  of  men.  Their 
seriousness  is  rarely  so  innocent  as  their  fun;  and  still 


i 


266  JEAN   PAUL   FKIEDRICn   RICHTER.        [fRAG.  IV, 

less  innocent  is  that  Bupercilious  discontent  which  con- 
verts the  virginal  Psyche  into  a  heavy,  stupid,  humming, 
wing-drooping  moth ;  a  death's  head,  for  instance.  The 
melancholy  night-flyer  may  possibly  please  the  lover ;  but 
the  husband  requires  his  day  Psyche,  for  marriage  demands 
cheerfulness.  In  a  certain  Libyan  people*  the  young  man 
married  that  girl  among  his  guests  who  laughed  at  his 
jokes ;  perhaps  my  meaning  is  contained  in  that  custom. 

Laughing  cheerfulness  throws  sunlight  on  all  the  paths 
of  life.  Peevishness  covers  with  its  dark  fog  even  the 
most  distant  horizon.  Sorrow  causes  more  absence  of 
mind  and  confusion  than  so-called  levity.  If  a  woman 
can  perform  this  comedy  impromptu  in  married  life,  and 
occasionally  enliven  the  serious  epic  of  the  husband,  or 
hero,  by  her  amusing  heroic  ballads,  or  get  up,  as  the 
Eomans  did,  a  merry  farce  against  misfortunes,  she  will 
have  bribed  and  won  joy,  and  her  husband,  and  her 
children. 

Never  fear  that  feminine  merriment  precludes  depth  of 
soul  and  feeling.  Does  it  do  so  in  men  ?  And  did  not  the 
lawgiver  Lycurgus,  and  his  Spartans  everywhere,  build 
an  altar  in  his  house  to  Laughter  ?  It  is  precisely  under 
external  cheerfulness  that  the  quiet  powers  of  the  heart 
increase  and  grow  to  their  full  stature.  How  heavenly 
must  it  be,  then,  when,  for  the  first  time,  the  smiling  face 
weeps  for  love,  and  the  irrepressible  tears  mirror  the  whole 
gentle  heart ! 

Wherefore,  ye  mothers,  do  not  merely  suffer  but  assist 
your  daughters  to  become  externally  French  girls,  in- 
ternally German,  and  to  convert  life  into  a  comic  poem 
which  surrounds  its  deep  meaning  with  merry  forms.  I 
know  few  books  to  recommend  for  this  purpose — we  men 
always  think  of  these  first  when  advice  is  to  be  given — 
besides  the  letters  of  the  incomparable  Sevigne.  But  wit, 
mere  wit,  is — in  opposition  to  aesthetics — the  comedy  and 
humour  of  women;  an  epigram  is  to  them  a  humorous 
chapter,  a  Haug  or  a  Martial,  a  Sterne  or  an  Aristophanes. 
They  will  laugh  themselves  ill,  or  rather  well,  about  the 
curious  marriage  of  the  great  and  little  ;  which  only  seema 
no  mis-alliance  to  man  surveying  the  long  connected  chain 
♦  Alex,  ab  Alex  lib.  I.  o.  24. 


CHAP.  IV.]  LEVAKA.  267 

of  being.  But  langh  away !  and  may  your  mothers  read 
you  many  epigrams  !  I  wish  much  there  were  a  suitably 
selection  of  these  for  girls,  and  a  few  comic  works  writter^ 
expressly  for  them,  which  would  certainly  sound  very 
French !  Then  let  the  dear  merry  children  laugh  to  their 
hearts'  content  among  one  another,  and  especially  at  any 
grave  pompous  man  who  comes  among  them,  even  were  he 
the  author  of  this  ninety-seventh  paragraph. 


§  98. 

Inquiries  might  still  be  made  concerning  the  educatiou 
of  women  of  genius,  and  one  of  a  peculiar  nature  required 
for  them.  But  I  will  only  insist  the  more  strongly  on  the 
necessity  of  an  ordinary  one  for  them,  which  may  act  as 
the  balance  and  counterpoise  of  their  fancy.  Genius-^ 
which  with  wonderful  works  as  with  holy  festivals  breaks 
into  the  common  course  of  the  week — cannot  be  learned, 
can  be  very  little  taught,  and  not  at  all  overcome ;  and 
will  boldly  raise  its  brow  above  time  and  sex  and  every 
difficulty.  Talent,  not  genius,  can  be  repressed,  that  is, 
annihilated ;  just  as  a  compound  can  be  destroyed,  that  is 
decomposed,  but  not  a  simple  power.  And  truly,  were  the 
repression  of  genius  by  circumstances  possible,  we  should 
never  once  have  experienced  its  existence.  For  then 
genius,  always  appearing  only  as  the  one  intercalary  day 
of  many  years,  as  one  single  day  contradicting  and  voting 
against  a  majority  of  1400  days,  must  have  fallen  a  prey 
to  the  opposing  tendencies  of  its  age — that  is  to  tendencies 
which,  enslaving  men  from  the  earliest  times,  would  bind 
them  down  to  the  latest — as  a  horse  to  the  multitudinous 
stings  of  bees.  Nevertheless,  genius  has  existed,  for  we 
have  the  word.  They  whom  it  inspired  made,  like  other 
generals  and  monarchs  of  this  world,  separate  treaties  of 
peace  with  their  neighbours,  and  only  after  death  a  general 
one  with  the  whole  world. 

But  if  a  man  of  genius  must  also  be  a  man  and  a  citizen, 
and,  if  possible,  a  father  too,  a  woman  must  not  suppose 
herself  elevated  by  her  genius  above  her  appointed  day- 
labour  in  life.     If  a  Jean  Jaaj[ue8  write  upon  education,  an 


268  JEAN    PAUL   FRIEDRICH   RICHTER.       [fRAG.  IV. 

intelligent  Johanna  Jacqnelina  need  not  be  ashamed  of  the 
occupation  of  intelligent  men  ;  on  the  contrary,  the  rare 
excess  of  female  talent  should  rather  be  an  additional  call 
to  education  than  a  passport  for  neglecting  it. 

But,  if  women  are  ever  ashamed  of  acting  up  to  the  ideas 
on  which  they  pride  themselves,  their  destiny  avenges 
itself  upon  them  justly  and  severely. 

First,  justly.  For  woman  is  appointed  to  be  the  Vesta,  or 
Vestal  priestess,  of  home — not  the  sea  nymph  of  the  ocean. 
The  fuller  she  is  of  an  ideal  perfection  the  more  must  she 
endeavour  to  express  it  in  reality ;  as  the  ideal  of  all  ideals 
— God — ^has  manifested  Himself  in  the  world  ;  she  should 
educate  a  daughter  as  He  educates  the  whole  human  race. 
If  a  poet  can  express  his  ideal  as  well  in  the  narrow 
limits  of  the  Dutch  school  as  in  the  far  horizon  of  the 
Italian,  wherefore  should  she  not  be  able  to  express  hers 
in  the  kitchen,  store-room  and  nursery  ? 

And,  secondly,  the  punishment  of  the  neglected  re- 
lations of  life  is  severe.  A  woman  can  never  forget  to 
love,  though  she  be  a  poet  or  a  ruler.  Then,  instead  of 
children,  women  of  genius  seek  the  society  of  men.  By 
these  they  expect  to  be  loved  as  women,  though  they 
themselves  only  love  as  men.  So  they,  like  flying-fish 
between  the  two  elements,  hover  between  manhood  and 
womanhood,  injured  by  both,  and  persecuted  in  both 
kingdoms.  They  then  become  the  more  unhappy  the 
wider  their  intellectual  circle  extends;  a  poetess,  for 
instance,  becomes  more  so  than  a  painter. 

But,  if  they  unite  their  woman's  destiny  with  genius,  a 
mighty  and  rare  blessedness  fills  their  hearts  ;  the  clouds 
which  pour  their  floods  in  the  valleys,  gently  dissolve  on 
their  heights  as  on  mountain  tops. 

What  is  most  to  be  desired  for  such  heads  is  a  crown,  a 
prince's  or  a  ducal  coronet ;  and  this  brings  us  to  the  next 
chapter. 


CHAP,  v.]  LEVANA.  269 


CHAPTER  V. 

PRIVATE  INSTRUCTIONS  OF   A  PRINCE   TO   THE  GOVERNESS  OF   HIS 
DAUGHTER. 

§  99. 

Permit  me  to  embody  in  a  dream  tlie  few  thotiglits  1 
have  to  ofifer  on  the  education  of  princesses.  The  dream 
of  which  I  speak  elevated  me  at  once  above  all  middle 
grades  into  the  rank  of  princes;  an  elevation  you  will 
please  to  ascribe  less  to  secret  veneration  than  to  excessive 
newspaper  reading.  It  seemed  to  me,  then,  that  I  was 
called  Prince  Justinian,  and  my  consort  Theodosia,  the 
mother  of  the  Princess  Theoda,  and  our  governess 
Pomponne,  apparently  some  French  surname.  The  private 
instructions  which  1  imparted,  my  princely  hat  upon  my 
head,  to  Madame  de  Pomponne,  may  sound  sufficiently 
dreamy  in  somewhat  of  the  following  form : — 

My  dear  Pomponne,  I  like  going  at  once  openly  to 
work.  What  my  consort  arranged  with  you  yesterday 
about  Theoda's  education  I  ratify  with  pleasure,  because 
she  wishes  it :  but  as  soon  as  you  have  read  my  wishes 
on  this  subject  I  confidently  expect  some  private  altera- 
tions in  the  list  of  rules  which  has  been  laid  before 
you.  For  truly  I  give  out  my  laws  as  readily  as  another, 
though  I  also  intentionally  receive  some;  one  cannot 
always  have  the  crown  close  at  hand  in  one's  pocket,  as 
the  German  emperors  formerly  carried  their  imperial  in- 
signia along  with  them  in  every  journey  :  but  let  people 
beware  of  resembling  my  royal  cousins,  who  —albeit  the  an- 
cient Persian  kings  dared  refuse  nothing  to  their  queens  on 
their  birthday —scarcely  ever  close  their  birthday-festivals. 

I  confess  that  shortly  aiter  my  nuptials  I  hoped  my 
wife,  like  those  in  humbler  stations,  might  possibly  take 
upon  herself  the  education  of  a  future  princess,  and  that 
you  would  merely  have  borne  the  title  of  governess.  In 
fact  when  I,  who  best  know  what  a  longest  day  and  a 
longest  night  combined  in  one  four-and-twenty  hours 
signify,  take  into  consideration  the  tedium  of  a  court,  I 


^70  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   EICHTEll.       [fP.AG.  IV. 

should  think  that  a  princess,  who  must  feel  it  even  more 
severely  than  a  prince,  would  for  that  very  reason  gladly 
expend  her  time  and  her  whims  on  the  education  of  a 
daughter.  Since  one  becomes  so  weary  of  courtiers,  who, 
like  people  in  boots  and  stirrups,  always  think  they  stand  on 
the  palace  floor  most  securely  with  bended  knees,  that  one 
actually  longs  for  dogs  and  parrots  and  monkeys  ;  because 
they,  indifferent  to  rank,  are  always  free,  new  and  inter- 
esting; surely  my  child,  who  in  a  court  belongs  to  the 
small  number  of  my  equals,  and  therefore  ventures  freely 
to  say  what  she  thinks,  must  be  even  more  interesting 
And  should  not  an  excellent  royal  mother,  who  can  devote 
whole  years  to  a  painting  or  a  piece  of  embroidery,  more 
gladly  sit  to  herself  and  jiaint  herself  in  the  living  copy 
of  her  daughter  ?  And  why  do  the  simple  priests  at  the 
a,ltar  only  pray  that  princesses  may  become  happy  mothers, 
and  not  that  they  should  continue  such  by  educating  their 
children  ? 

But  these  are  only  questions.  There  are  many  difficulties 
which  my  beloved  Theodosia  could  not  so  easily  overcome 
as  my  paternal  imagination  fancied.  For  the  rest  she  is 
so  loving  and  tender  a  mother,  as  you  will  yourself 
experience,  that  she  seldom  or  never  permits  a  week  to 
pass  without  once  sending  to  call  Theoda. 

Nevertheless,  dear  Pomponne,  much,  indeed  most, 
depends  upon  your  love  and  attention  to  the  child.  1 
yesterday  heard  and  subscribed  tlio  long  chapter  on 
external  propriety,  royal  female  dignity  and  reserve ;  so 
let  that  be ;  and  I  will  myself,  at  the  right  time,  procure 
the  princess  a  daneing-master  from  Paris  who  shall 
instruct  her  in  the  art  of  raising  or  letting  fall  her  train. 
But,  my  good  lady,  I  hope  you  will  not  carry  too  far  that 
self-confining  fence  round  every  step,  that  consideration  of 
every  verbal  expression,  that  squeezing  mould,  and  that 
crooked  or  straight  bending  of  the  body.  Oh !  my  good 
Theoda  !  must  it  be  so?  Cou  t  is  indeed  a  yays  coutumier, 
and  only  the  country  a  jpays  du  droit  civil,  which  the  regal 
palace  least  of  all  is.  Many  attitudes  and  impetuosities 
which,  in  my  officers,  I  should  regard  as  improprieties  and 
offences  against  my  majesty,  are  in  me,  the  master,  treated 
(perhaps  from  flattery)  as  original  traits,  as  piquant  and 


CHAP.  V.J  LEVANA.  271 

amiable  peculiarities;  and  the  earnest  wish  is  expressed  that 
they  may  be  frequently  repeated.  Acting  on  this  method 
of  interpretation,  1  pray  you  to  permit  the  princess  always 
to  run  a  little.  After  my  marriage  I  became  acquainted 
with  one  of  the  fairest  and  most  amiable  princesses — 
excepting,  of  course,  your  mistress — who  had  the  charming 
ill-manners  —  any  thing  else  in  her  were  not  to  be  supposed 
— of  never  moving  in  a  concert-room,  or  other  assembly, 
save  at  a  running  pace  with  full  sails.  And  what  said 
the  court,  and  foreign  princes,  myself  Among  the  rest,  to 
this  ?  We  all  praised  her  animation  !  Now,  had  she  been 
twelve  years  old,  and  her  governess  present,  that  celestial 
animation  might  have  excited  a  fire  of  a  very  different 
description. 

Must,  then,  poor  unhappy  princesses  be  deprived  of  all 
soul,  and  converted  into  mere  machines  of  propriety,  and 
be  placed  in  the  court  as  in  an  ice-oven  through  which  the 
little  naphtha-flame  cannot  pass  ?  Must  a  princess  be  indeed 
80  closely  imprisoned  that  she  may  never  venture  to  cross 
a  bridge  on  foot,  except  the  fancy  park-bridge  ?  Are 
tears  the  best  princess's  washing  water?  It  is  at  least 
fortunate  that  we  princes  have  given  our  name  to  some- 
thing harder — prince's  metal.  Must  not  the  poor  children, 
in  later  yeats,  be  bound  down  in  formality  with  golden 
chains,  pompously  introduced  into  life's  desert  where 
love  is  not,  and  banished  under  the  polar  sky  of  the  throne, 
which  sends  forth  as  much  fog  and  frost  as  does  the  actual 
pole?  Even  a  ruling  master  lies  oppressed  under  it,  who 
could  be  very  different  and  thunder.  By  all  means  let 
every  thing  during  public  exhibitions  and  festivals  be 
measured  and  cold ;  but  not  so  when  she  is  alone  with 
you.  White  gravel  may  lie  glittering  and  smooth  on  the 
garden  walks,  but  no  one  u-es  it  in  flower-beds.  The  Duko 
of  Lauzun  said.  To  make  princesses  love  you  treat  them 
harshly  and  scold  them  unceasingly.  You  will  certainly 
not  confound  this  ducal  method  of  securing  love  with  that 
to  be  adopted  by  a  teacher.  You  admire,  a&  I  heard  you 
say  on  Sunday,  the  Scandinavian  mythology .  tell  me, 
now,  would  you  wish  only  to  be  Nos-a  *  to  my  daughter 
and  not  also  Gefione?     Health  is   the  true  Gefione;  and 

*  The  goddett  Noasa  gave  maidens  beauty :  Gefione,  prutection. 


272  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDKICH   RICHTER.       [fRAG.  IV. 

may  this  goddess  lead  Theoda  by  the  left  hand,  as  well  as 
Kossa  by  the  right ! 

Certainly  a  beautiful  princess  has  more  subjects  than, 
her  prince,  and  certainly  nowhere  does  female  beauty 
display  its  bloom  so  perfectly  as  on  the  Alps  of  the  throne  ; 
but  my  offspring  will  not  give  to  posterity  a  perfectly 
bloomed  flower.  The  prince's  hall  in  which,  as  in  a 
fortress,  the  German  future  lays  down  its  safety  and  its 
freedom  must  indeed  be  built  by  fair  and  tender,  but  also 
by  strong  hands.  If  every  mother  is  a  being  of  importance 
I  should  think  a  royal  mother  is  one  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance. If  I  can  only  arrange  it  so  Theoda  shall  ac- 
company me  next  July,  and  I  shall  have  the  pleasure  of 
accompanying  you.  I  will  then  effect  much.  It  is  stated 
in  the  Indian  travels  of  the  old  Mandelsloh  that  only  the 
kings  among  birds  of  paradise  have  feet ;  apparently  we 
princes  are  only  birds  of  paradise,  and  every  common 
person  is  our  king.  But  at  that  time  my  Queen  Theoda 
shall  go  on  foot;  and,  what  is  more,  she  shall  ride  on 
horseback,  which  no  Eoman  Dictator  ventured  to  do.  I 
really  do  not  like  to  think  how  the  health  of  royal  persons 
must  be  undermined  by  things  which  they  probably  drink 
every  day;  had  I  an  hereditary  prince  royal  I  should 
almost  lose  my  senses  with  anxiety ! 

I  should  wish  you  to  allow  my  Theoda  to  read  more 
English  than  French  books,  and  more  German  than  both. 
I  know  not  what  witty  author*  has  shown  the  similarity 
of  the  courtly  and  worldly  tone  of  mind  to  that  of  the 
French  literature;  at  the  same  time,  the  thought  is 
striking.  In  a  French  book  we  always  live  in  the  fashion- 
able world  and  at  court;  in  a  German  book  occasionally 
in  villages  and  in  the  market-place.  I  must  also  have  the 
princess  lose  some  of  that  awful  ignorance  about  the  people 
which  makes  her  imagine  them  only  a  multitudinous  re- 
petition of  the  fat  servants  who  stand  behind  her  chair  to 
remove  her  plate  and  clear  the  table.  She  must  not  fancy 
that  a  beggar  cannot  be  relieved  with  silver  coin,  because 
for  convenience  she  only  carries  with  her  gold.  This, 
however,  is  but  a  very  small  matter.     In  German  books  as 

*  This  was  I  myself  in  the  third  volume  of  the  iEsthetics  ;  but  in 
dreams  the  best  known  thiugs  are  forgotten. 


CHAP,  v.]  LEV  ANA.  273 

a  whole  there  predominates  a  healthy  force  of  affec- 
tions, boldness  of  language,  love  of  morality  and  religion, 
carefully  balanced  understanding,  sound-common  sense, 
unbiassed  all-sidedness  of  view,  hearty  love  of  human 
happiness,  and  a  pair  of  eyes  which  look  towards  heaven. 
Now,  if  this  German  strength  and  purity  be  ingrafted  on 
a  mind  tenderly  formed  by  sex  and  rank,  it  must  necessarily 
bear  the  loveliest  flowers  and  fruits. 

A  French  library,  on  the  contrary — if  I  do  not  judge 
unjustly,  embittered  by  Gallic  newspaper  writers  and  by 
my  old  loyal  tutors — is  nothing  better  than  a  kind  of 
anteroom  or  exchange.  Theoda  would  only  read  in  it 
what  she  every  day  hears ; — the  same  softness  of  speech 
with  hardness  of  thought  (just  as  mineralogists  append  to 
their  newly  discovered  stones  the  soft  Greek  termination 
t7e,  as  Hyalite  or  Cyanite) ; — the  same  flattery  of  diame- 
trically opposed  occurrences,  because  the  man  of  the  world 
resembles  the  Epicurean  who  denied  that  a  proposition 
was  either  true  or  false;  the  same  resemblance  in  other 
matters  of  the  worldly  man  and  the  Frenchman  to  the 
Epicurean  school  which,  unlike  every  school  of  philosophy, 
had  no  sects  because  the  whole  school  agreed  about  wine 
and  meats,  women  and  God — . 

No,  no,  let  my  Theoda  read  her  Herder  (she  will 
hear  Voltaire  in  plenty  amongst  her  chamberlains)  and 
Klopstock  and  Goethe  and  Schiller.  You,  dear  friend, 
of  children  and  of  French  people,  are  a  quite  suflicient 
French  library.  Formerly  in  German  courts — not  merely 
in  mine — your  countrymen  and  their  works  were  equally 
welcome  and  effective ;  as  if  what  the  Romans  found  in  real 
life,  that  Gallic  slaves  made  the  best  shepherds,*  were  also 
true  figuratively,  and  that  your  nation  could  furnish  the 
best  shepherds  of  the  shepherds  of  the  people — that  is  to 
say,  tutors  of  princes — and  also  the  best  shepherds  of  the 
people— that  is  to  say,  princes. 

Only  do  not  forget  Kousseau  and  Fenelon,  nor  Madame 
de  Necker  and  her  Memoires.  A  book  more  delicate,  re- 
fined, elegant,  religious  and,  moreover,  interesting  is 
scarcely  to  be  found  for  well  educated  women  than  this 

*  Meinex's  Hisiory  of  the  Decline  of  Morals  in  the  Romaua,  from 
Varro. 

1.  T 


274  JEAN   PAUL   FEEEDEICH  RTCHTER.         [fRAG.  IV. 

"by  Madame  de  Neeker,  whose  jewels  possess  as  mucH 
medicinal  virtue  as  colour  and  brilliancy.  But  lier 
daughter,  Madame  de  Stael,  may  postpone  leaving  her 
cards  for  my  daughter  until  the  girl  is  old  enough  to 
receive  so  intellectual  a  visit. 

German  princesses  now  fill  and  unite  almost  all  Euro- 
pean thrones ;  as  —  if  I  dare  speak  so  pedantically  — 
Aurora's  rosebuds  do  the  mountain  tops.  Formerly,  as 
Thomas  remarks,  heathen  princes  were  converted  to  a 
better  religion  by  their  marriages  with  Christian  princesses. 
This  achievement  cannot  now  be  expected  from  any 
princess ;  but  it  is  well  for  her  if  she  have  been  brought 
up  in  a  pure  religion.  He  who  has  no  higher  and  firmer 
heaven  above  his  head  than  the  canopy  of  the  throne, 
composed  of  wood  and  velvet,  is  very  circumscribed,  and 
has  but  a  narrow  prospect.  And  he  who,  on  the  blooming 
heights  of  humanity,  attains  no  happiness  is,  if  he  possess 
not  God  in  his  heart,  more  helpless  than  the  most  lowly 
who,  in  lamenting  over  his  own  humble  condition,  seeks 
the  hope  of  improvement.  Eeligion  only  can  reward  and 
arm  with  energy,  tranquillity,  life  and  peace  princesses 
who,  like  Narcissus,  are  too  frequently  sacrificed  to  an 
infernal  deity.  By  what  othe  raid  could  women  in  former 
ages,  when  there  was  less  refinement,  endure  and  even 
forget  to  grieve  at  the  rudeness  and  cruelty  of  men,  than 
by  that  of  religion,  which  transfigured  many  an  hour  of 
tears  into  one  of  prayer  ?  A  woman,  to  whom  so  much 
perishes  ere  she  herself  dies,  needs,  more  than  a  man  does, 
something  which  may  accompany  her  as  a  glorious  star 
from  youth  to  age.  And  what  is  the  name  of  this  star? 
In  the  morning  of  life  it  is  the  star  of  love ;  later,  it  is 
only  called  the  evening  star. 

Henry  the  Eighth  of  England  forbad  women  to  read 
the  New  Testament ;  the  age,  alas  !  does  so  now.  Happily 
for  my  wishes  I  know  you  and  your  sex.  An  unbelieving 
princess  is  almost  as  rare  as  a  believing  prince,  and  you 
perhaps  grant  both.  In  earlier  ages,  it  is  true,  we  find 
Gustavus,  Bernard,  Ernest,  and  some  others,  anchored  to 
religion  as  to  a  firm  mountain.*    My  position  may  possibly 

*  E.  g.  to  the  mountain  of  Tachwa  in  Novgorod.  Hube's  Physic, 
vol.  i. 


CH\P.  v.]  LEVANA.  275 

lead  me  astray,  but  I  confess  that  to  every  ideal  I  form  of 
female  beauty  a  throne  is  the  footstool.  My  travels  may 
form  an  excuse  for  this — but  so  it  has  always  been  with 
my  ideals  of  woman's  mental  beauty,  and  I  have  ever  seen 
it  crowned.  "With  thorns?"  you  ask.  "Probably,"  I 
answer,  "  but  also  with  gold." 

In  short,  I  believe  that  a  certain  ideal  delicacy  and 
purity  of  the  female  soul  can  be  developed  nowhere  so 
beautifully  as  in  the  highest  position — on  the  throne — as 
the  loveliest  flowers  bloom  on  mountains,  and  the  sweetest 
honey  comes  from  hilly  countries;  two  resemblances 
which  hold  forth  a  promise  jf  the  third.  As  female 
nature  for  her  fairest  flowers  requires  forms  and  customs, 
which  may  be  compared  to  fine  soil  and  elegant  vases, 
whereas  man's  roots  can  press  through  and  burst  open 
the  hardest  earth  and  rocks ;  so  she  finds  what  alone  she 
needs  at  court,  which  is,  confessedly,  all  form  and  custom, 
and  that  of  the  narrowest  and  most  absolute  description 
— I  do  not  say  this,  self-laudatorily,  of  my  own  —for  the 
mere  fact  of  an  education  among  the  highest  ranks,  as  well 
as  the  contemplation  of  the  most  refined  politeness, — these 
forms  and  reflections  of  morality, — will  be  there  not  only 
as  the  reversed  and  dim  counterpart,  but  as  the  original 
bright-coloured  rainbow.  I  might  also  adduce  decency, 
honour,  propriety  (of  the  men  as  well  as  of  the  women), 
delicacy,  forbearance,  which  are  all  required  by  courts; 
and  not  merely,  as  is  falsely  supposed,  in  the  public,  but 
also  in  the  private  personal  demeanour ;  I  mean  in  every 
word  by  which  the  courtier  expresses,  not  himself,  but 
something  better — a  moral  seeming. 

Woman's  virtue  is  the  music  of  string  instruments, 
which  sounds  best  in  a  room;  but  man's  that  of  wind 
instruments,  which  sounds  best  in  the  open  air.  As  men 
always  act  most  honourably  in  public — the  act  of 
cowardice  which  might  be  committed  in  a  closet  or  in 
a  wood  becomes  impossible  at  the  head  of  an  army  or  a 
uation,  and  as  we  royal  mai-tyrs  in  our  apartments  too  much 
resemble  the  Greek  tragic  actors  whom  the  chorus  never 
left  for  a  moment  alone  on  the  stage,  and,  finally,  as  women, 
avoiding  the  observation  of  many  eyes  yet  pay  regard 
to  them  by  the  fairest  actions,  my  proposition  is  natural. 

T  2 


276  TEAN   PAUL   FEIEDRICH   EICHTEK.         [fRAG.  IV, 

I  can  still  add  something.  The  princess,  free  from 
distracting  labour  in  the  rough  service  of  life ;  placed  in 
the  mild  climate  of  physical  repose,  advantageous  to  the 
heart  as  well  as  to  the  beauty ;  brought  up  rather  to 
observation  than  to  action,  at  least  unless  she  absolutely 
will,  without  compulsion,  enter  that  black  pit  of  statecraft 
at  whose  mouth  prince  and  minister  throw  off  the  mantle 
of  love,  as  they  would  give  their  servants  a  woollen  cloak 
to  hold  ; — I  really  do  not  remember  how  or  why  I  began, 
but  I  do  know  this;  that  the  nobler  class  of  women,  even 
after  a  long  black  funereal  train  of  misanthropical  expe- 
riences, still  keep  alive  their  loving  heart  and  genuine 
feeling ;  whereas  men  in  such  cases,  yes,  even  sometimes 
after  one  single  grievous  misfortune,  bury  their  desolate 
lost  heart  in  the  perpetual  hatred  of  their  species.  A 
woman  could  more  easily  close  for  ever  her  mouth  than 
her  heart. 

Why  waste  many  words?  I  have  seen  excellent 
princesses.  Without  the  advantages  of  the  throne  they 
would  have  lost  much,  and  without  its  disadvantages,  the 
rest.  In  fact,  patience,  a  little  suffering,  and  that  of 
the  mind — as  when,  for  instance,  years  convert  the 
wedding-ring  into  a  chain — and  other  things  of  a  similar 
nature  form  within  the  flower  the  fruit,  and  within  that 
the  seed  of  a  heavenly  life. 

To  this  head  belongs  the  patience  necessitated  by  the 
courtly  tedium  of  our  rank.  The  Sabbath  was  especially 
ordained  by  Moses  as  a  rest  day  for  slaves ;  but  it  is  pre- 
cisely this  day  of  rest  which  at  court  is  converted  into 
a  day  of  unrest.  As  often  as  my  people  envies  me  during 
these  tumultuous  festivals,  I  seem  to  myself  to  resemble 
the  Spartan  helots  who  were  flogged  to  death  to  the  sweet 
sound  of  flutes. 

M}'"  dear  Theodosia  would  gladly  have  her  daughter  as 
highly  gifted  as  herself,  and  therefore  strongly  impressed 
upon  you  the  desirability  of  cultivating  her  imagination. 
It  is,  perhaps,  because  I  myself  am  of  a  dryer  and  harder 
nature,  and  prefer  keeping  myself  warm  with  my  wings 
to  flying  far  up  into  the  cold  ether,  that  I  lay  so  very 
much  stress  on  my  daughter's  possessing  sound  common- 
sense.     Indeed,  if  I  could,  I  should  like  to  undermine  this 


CHAP,  v.]  LEYANA.  277 

powerfiilness  of  imagination.  Fancy  in  a  princess  pro- 
duces a  great  many  fancies  in  a  prince  ;  hence  arise  storms 
in  the  royal  atmosphere  and  all  kinds  of  volcanic  products, 
burning  of  the  treasure  closets,  maledictions  on  the  crown 
jewels,  and  much  else  that  I  could  name.  If  a  fanciful 
woman  could  carry  the  whole  verdure  of  the  country,  in  its 
meadows  and  its  woods,  compressed  and  poetically  sub- 
limed into  one  ring,  on  her  finger,  in  the  shape  of  the 
largest  emerald — by  Heavens!  Pomponne,  she  would  do 
it !  Therefore,  I  would  most  gladly  exchange  it  for  a 
sound  understanding,  if  I  had  it  not.  I  grant  one  can 
make  but  very  little  show  with  it,  but  then  one  can  judgo 
all  the  more  correctly.  And  this  I  certainly  know,  that 
many  a  princess,  who,  during  her  husband's  reign, 
modestly  showed  herself  as  nothing  more  than  a  sensible 
affectionate  mother  and  wife,  could,  after  his  death,  (I 
pray  you  call  to  mind  the  widow  of  my  dear  old  friend  in 
M — g — n,)  replace  the  father  by  the  mother  of  her  country, 
and  with  her  clear  eye,  and  ear  open  to  instruction, 
rightly  guide  the  vessel  of  the  state.  Fancy  and  fancies 
on  the  throne,  round  which,  as  round  other  heights,  more 
winds  blow  than  behind  the  low  hull  of  the  ship,  are  only 
full  spread  sails  in  a  storm,  which  the  captain,  or  the 
understanding,  ought  to  take  in. 

I  would  wish  Theoda  to  have  as  much  cheerfulness  as 
possible,  but  wit  only  in  moderation.  The  latter,  when 
united  with  good  sense  and  a  constant  kindly  heart,  may 
perhaps  guide,  or,  at  all  events,  drive  the  prince  consort, 
as  the  weak  sorceress  formerly  ruled  the  devil ;  but  wit 
alone  without  heart,  salt  without  meat,  transforms  a 
woman,  like  Lot's  wife  who  became  a  pillar  of  salt  from 
whom  the  old  Lot  parted  and  went  on  his  way. 

But  to  return  to  the  imagination.  I  should  be  glad, 
Madam,  if  you  could  discover,  or  excite  in  my  daughter  a 
talent  for  either  music  or  drawing.  Music,  if  only  listened 
to  and  not  scientifically  cultivated,  gives  too  much  play  to 
the  feelings  and  fancy ;  the  difficulties  of  the  art  draw  forth 
the  whole  energies  of  the  soul.  Hence  a  certain  minister, 
Hermes,   in   Berlin,  *   recommended  girls   to  be  taught 

:  ♦  Now  consistorial-couQcillor  in  Breslau.  Princely  and  dream- 
lilie  trammutation  withaL 


27^  JEAN   PAUL   FEIEDRICH   KICHTER.         [fEAG.  IVi 

thorough  bass.  Drawing  also  is  good,  a  Ithough  it  has  the 
disadvantage  of  giving  too  much  preponderance  to  a 
woman's  naturally  keen  eye  for  forms.  One  thing  or  the 
other ;  a  painting,  for  instance,  at  which  a  princess  has 
laboured  for  about  half  a  year,  if  it  have  not  been  produced 
with  the  help  of  the  court  artist,  as  private  instructor  and 
father  of  the  piece,  would  to  her, — a  bee  imprisoned  in  the 
variegated  tulip-bed  of  the  court, — smell  sweetly  as  the 
flowers ;  for  thus  she  possesses  something  which  she  sees 
daily  grow  under  her  hands,  in  which  consists  the  happi- 
ness of  life.  The  old  Saxon  princess  who,  as  I  have  read, 
embroidered  the  banks  of  the  Ehine  on  a  robe,  was 
certainly  as  happy,  yes,  happier,  while  embroidering  it, 
than  in  the  robe  itself.  At  the  present  day  half  her 
heaven  would  have  been  stolen  from  her,  since,  as  I  hear 
we  no  longer  possess  the  left  bank.* 

With  regard  to  female  vanity  3'ou  need  do — that  is,  say 
— nothing;  for  every  word  in  your  apartment  is  useless  if, 
in  the  evening  at  tea  or  in  the  concert  room,  Theoda  heal 
the  very  opposite  from  grave  men  and  women,  who  think 
to  do  honour  at  the  same  time  to  both  rank  and  sex,  and 
by  this  very  confounding  of  both  constantly  intrude  the 
latter  on  the  poor  child.  As  she  grows  older  a  very 
marked  admiration  becomes  the  duty  of  every  courtier, 
since,  unfortunately,  the  stupid  printed  genealogical  tables 
every  year  declare  the  age  of  a  princess  ;  in  London  they 
act  in  a  still  more  foolish  fashion  and  actually  shoot  the 
number  of  years  into  people's  ears  by  the  discharge  of 
cannon  ;  therefore,  she  need  not — like  the  modern  Roman 
women,  whose  dislike  of  perfumes  keeps  them  at  a  distance 
from  the  altar  with  its  incense — retreat  from  the  admiration 
naturally  attendant  on  her  rank  and  sex,  but  simply 
remain  standing. 

And  now  I  come  to  the  most  important  point ;  namely, 
— all  of  religion  and  human  happiness  which  I  have 
hitherto  desired  at  your  hand  for  Theoda  must  assist  and 
be  subservient  to  her  princely  destiny,  and  not  by  any 
means  work  against  it.  Consolation  and  fortitude  I  would 
wish  her  to  draw  thence,  but  no  arms  against  her  parents* 
will.  This,  between  ourselves,  is  what  I  mean.  Since 
*  Written  in  1805. 


CHAP,  v.]  LEV  ANA.  279 

my  last  travels  I  do  not  feel  by  any  means  certain  that,  in 
eight  or  ten  years,  my  Theoda,  regarded  as  a  cement  of 
se\ered  lands,  or  rivet  of  different  crowns,  may  not  be 
uuited  to  a  prince  whom,  which  Heaven  forbid  !  she  may 
from  her  heart  detest.  To  this  fear  royal  parents  must 
submit :  in  fact,  I  must  regard  the  glory  of  my  house  ;  and 
I  have  always  considered  childien  as  royal  pledges,  whom 
I  have  only  to  place  as  far  from  me  as  possible  in  order  to 
win  an  extension  of  territory.  Wherefore,  Madam,  on  this 
point  my  daughter  must  leani  to  give  no  other  answer  than 
ye«.  Would  that  bridegrooms  were  as  easily  selected  by 
diplomacy  as  brides !  Still  some  good  may  be  made  out  of 
the  worst  case ;  and  on  the  rocks  of  the  throne,  against 
which  others  make  shipwreck,  we  can  only  bleed.  A 
woman,  previously  so  imdetermined  and  obedient  to  the 
whole  compass  of  male  zephyrs,  becomes,  under  the 
influence  of  .a  fixed  husband  who  determines  her  fate,  a 
steady  trade-wind.  The  most  ugly  often  becomes,  at  the 
altar,  or  shortly  afterwards,  the  most  beautiful ;  and  a 
similar  change  often  accompanies  pieci>ely  opposite  condi- 
tions. The  priest's  words,  like  lightning  on  the  magnet, 
^sily  reverse  the  positfon  of  the  positive  and  negative 
poles. 

But  too  much  of  this.  I  consider  my  little  future  son-in- 
law  to  be  honourable,  and  no  one  yet  knows  what  kind  of  a 
man  may  grow  out  of  the  merry  boy.  But  even  supposing 
that  the  priestly  blessing  were  to  the  princess  a  priestly 
anathema,  and  that  her  honeymoon  were  passed  in  courtly 
mourning,  yet  I  cannot  help  her,  at  all  events  before  she 
gives  her  hand. 

It  is  true  that  in  Loango  a  princess,  and  only  a  princess, 
can  choose  what  husband  she  will  ;  and  in  Homer,  Penelope 
had  a  hundred-and-eight  wooers,  without  reckoning  the 
absent  husband ;  but  that  is  of  no  avail  to  our  princesses, 
especially  before  marriage,  for  those  are  neither  our  times 
nor  countries.  Diplomatic  marriages  must  be  like  English 
soldier  marriages,  provided  not  merely  hands  and  hearts 
but  whole  countries  are  to  be  united.  Should  it  really 
happen  that  a*  throne  became  a  Gold  Coast  where  a 
daughter  was  sold  into  a  slave  ship,  then  you  can  give  her 
no  fairer  princestt's  dowi-y  and  mirriage  gift  than  a  mother's 


280  JEAN  PAUL   FRIF.DRICH   RTCHTER.         [fRAG.  IV 

heart ;  this  will  compensate  her  for  all  her  sacrifices ;  a 
child's  love  is  more  certain  than  a  husband's. 

After  such  confidence  I  require  from  yon  no  other  ansv7er 
than  the  future,  which  the  governess  of  a  princess  holds 
more  surely  in  her  hand  than  does  the  tutor  of  a  prince  ; 
for  the  latter  is  relieved  and  removed,  and  his  successors 
less  resemble  the  popes,  each  of  whom  continued  the 
building  of  St.  Peter's,  than  princes  who,  for  the  most  part, 
leave  the  buildings  of  their  predecessors  unfinished.  You, 
on  the  contrary,  may  long  lead  Theoda  by  the  hand ; 
perhaps  even  till  you  resign  it  into  that  of  her  husband. 
May  you  succeed  well ! 

Justinian. 

My  dream  came  to  an  end  along  with  my  letter  and  I 
arose.  But  as  I  laid  aside  the  crown  along  with  my  night- 
cap and  became  as  usual  a  private  person,  a  critic  who 
should  blame  any  thing  in  my  instructions  would  prove 
nothing  more  than  that  he  was  ignorant  of,  or  indifierent 
to,  Kant's  axiom,  that  a  deposed  sovereign  can  never  be 
punished  for  faults  committed  by  him  on  the  throne.  It  is 
something  quite  different  when  I  am  awake,  and  then  fall 
into  errors. 


(    281    ) 


FIFTH  FKAGMENT. 


CHAPTER  I. 

ON   THE  EDUCATION.  OF  A   PRINCE. 
§100. 

Many  readers,  especially  critical  ones,  will  probably, 
without  my  aid,  make  the  remark  and  the  reproach,  that 
in  the  former  Chapters  I  have  treated  of  the  particular 
before  the  general — of  the  education  of  women  before  that 
of  men,  which  extends  into  a  wider  sphere  of  moral, 
intellectual  and  assthetical  development ;  and  that,  again, 
in  this  Chapter  the  particular  education  of  kings  is  placed 
before  the  general  one  of  men.  And,  truly,  in  the 
fragment  about  girls,  readers  will  miss  any  systematic 
order,  and  only  find  a  systematic  want  of  order  for  women. 
Now,  should  any  one  forget  to  make  these  remarks  and 
reproaches,  they  are  here  set  down  ready  for  him. 

Moreover,  in  treating  of  the  education  of  a  prince,  the 
author  must  again  avail  himself  of  the  kind  reader's 
former  permisson,  to  turn  letter  writer ;  but  in  this  instance 
he  did  not  dream  a  letter  in  bed,  but  really  sent  the 
Bubjoined  one  by  post. 

LETTER 

ON  THB  EDUCATION  OP  PRINCES,   ADDRESSED  TO   MR.   ADELHARD, 
prince's  TUTOR  AND  PRIVY  COUNCILLOR. 

Balreuth,  Oct.  1,  1805. 

Your  invitation,  my  dear  friend,  to  visit  you  and  the 
prince  at  his  country  residence  could  not  have  come  more 
opportunely  than  just  now  when  I  am  In  the  very  act  oi 


282  JEAN   PAUL   FEIEDT.ICH   RICHTEIl.         [fEAG.  V. 

packing  up  and  taking  flight  because  the  lava  stream  of 
war  seems  to  take  its  course  towards  our  country.  And, 
what  is  still  better,  I  am  at  present  engaged  on  a  Doctrine 
of  Education  in  fragments,  one  of  which,  at  least,  must 
contain  a  few  words  about  the  education  of  royal  children  ; 
and  I  am  very  much  mistaken  if  I  shall  not  find  with  you 
that  Magna  Charta  and  electoral  franchise  which  is  the 
most  important  for  a  prince ;  namely,  that  which  the  tutor 
lays  down  and  prescribes  for  the  little  prince.  In  fact,  I 
expect  from  you  two  patterns ;  one  of  a  teacher,  and  one 
of  a  pupil. 

If  you  will  not  regard  it  as  a  jest,  dear  Adelhard,  I  will 
now  write  a  long  letter,  divining  and  predicting  what  you 
have  begun  and  accomplished  with  your  pupil,  merely 
that  I  may  place  the  letter  among  my  fragments  as  a 
pocket  mirror  for  princes'  tutors.  It  seems  to  me  that 
when  I  prophesy  my  predictions  at  once  become  rules. 

For  I  have  a  kind  of  dislike  absolutely  to  lay  down 
rules.  If  one  must  place  oneself  in  the  soul  of  the  pupil, 
in  order  thence  to  educate  him,  the  task  becomes  in  the 
highest  degree  difficult  for  any  fellow-creature,  especially 
for  the  tutor  of  a  prince  ;  because  the  external  conditions 
of  royalty  differ  from  ours  not  in  degree  but  in  kind. 
Kingly  government  is  totally  different  from  any  other; 
we  only  experience  power  over  parts,  not  over  the  whole ; 
we  see  approaches  to  ourselves  both  from  above  and  from 
below:  the  prince  sees  one;  but  the  highest  and  the 
lowest  servants  of  the  state  are  to  him  equally  distant  from 
the  throne,  equally  incapable  of  holding  the  sceptre. 
While  common  plants  are  contented  with  the  common 
earth  and  air,  the  prince,  like  a  plant  of  foreign  growth, 
requires  a  peculiar  soil,  a  southern  aspect,  and  a  hothouse. 

Therefore  the  choice  of  the  royal  gardener  is  all  the 
more  important.  Fortunately  the  kingdom  of  education, 
at  least,  is  an  elective  monarchy.  Even  the  court — which 
formerly  employed  learned  men  as  the  fair  Spaniards  use 
glow-worms  at  night,  only  as  glittering  gems,  but  not  as 
the  Indians  do  fire-flies,  as  lights — regards  the  choice  of  a 
prince's  tutor  as  a  matter  of  sufficent  importance  to  break 
it  up  into  sects.  Do  you  not  remember  the  Schismatics 
and  Separatists  in  the  court  of  Flachsenfingen  about  the 


CHAP.  I.]  LEV  ANA.  2S3 

choice  of  t  he  prince's  tutor  ?  I  once  related  them  to  you  on  the 
verj'  best  authority,  in  the  presence  of  the  principal  gover- 
ness of  the  royal  children.  You,  dear  Adelhard,  were  only 
selected  by  the  father  and  mother  for  their  child,  so  that 
no  one  should  be  able  to  say  which  of  the  four  human 
beings  was  the  most  fortunate.  But  in  Flachsenfingen 
the  queen-mother  and  her  party  declared  in  favour  of  the 
flat,  dull-gold,  court  preacher  ; — the  king  and  his  adherents 
concurred  in  desiring  to  secure  my  services ;  — the  third 
party,  that  of  the  lord  high  chamberlain  and  his  worn  out 
favourite,  the  chief  governess,  all  my  declared  enemies, 
unanimously  voted  for  that  genteel,  nice,  young  man  whom 
we  all  pretty  well  know,  that  wretched  powder  without 
report  which  every  one  previously  avoided.  So  very 
wisely  does  a  court  know  how  to  unite  the  happiness  of 
the  country  with  the  good  fortune  of  its  own  relatives,  by 
seeking  the  former  through  the  latter !  This  is  the  reason 
why  courtiers  do  not  appear  by  any  means  so  unselfish  and 
honourable  as  they  are.  Just  as  the  banker  at  a  great 
gaming-table  fastens  to  his  hat  the  card  (let  us  suppose 
it  the  ace  of  hearts)  upon  or  against  which  he  will  not  bet ; 
so  the  marshal  by  a  golden  star,  and  the  governess  by  a 
golden  heart,  as  symbols  of  light  and  love,  showed  which 
were  the  two  cards  on  which  they  would  never  lose  nor  win 
anything.  This  is  what  many  people  call  intriguing  for 
the  choice  of  the  prince's  tutor. 

Charles  the  Great,  owing  to  his  physical  strengtli,  was 
called  an  army  :  every  prince,  owing  to  his  political  power, 
may  be  regarded  as  a  moral  army ;  and  this  army  at  first 
has  no  otlier  generalissimo  than  the  tutor.  He  alone  may 
freely  instruct  and  touch  the  mind,  which,  in  after  years, 
will  neither  experience  nor  suffer  C(mtradiction.  This 
task  is  more  ea<y  and  varied  than  that  of  any  future 
favourite ;  for  he  has  only  wax,  not  marble,  to  shape.  He 
may  be  bold  enough  to  oppose  and  punish  the  passions 
of  the  little  prince,  which  his  subsequent  attendants  will 
only  use  and  misdirect.  Yes,  he  may  carry  his  influence 
80  far — which  never  minister  or  favourite  yet  did — as  to 
gain  such  a  victory  as  Fenelon,  who  transformed  an  ill- 
disposed  duke  of  Burgundy  into  a  pure  noble-minded  man, 
whose  premature  death  probably  opened  the  entrance  into 


284  JEAN   PAUL   FEIEDRTCH   RTCHTER.         [fRAG.  V. 

the  great  catacomb  of  the  last  century.  The  knowledge,  the 
habits,  the  principles,  the  tastes,  which  he  may  give  or  leave 
to  his  pupil,  work  either  for  or  against  all  future  influences. 
He  may,  in  a  spiritual  light,  imitate  the  men  who  carried 
torches  before  the  Eoman  emperors  even  in  the  day  time. 
In  short,  he  may — if  he  possess  the  power  within  himself 
— combine  in  one  office  both  the  characters  of  that 
Dionysius  who  was  a  king  in  Sicily,  a  schoolmaster  in 
Corinth.  Let  him  at  least  strive  to  do  so  !  For  to  the 
perfect  formation  of  a  political  prince  a  man  of  moral 
power  is  necessary ;  he  may  be  called  tutor  to  the  prince, 
but  he,  in  fact,  as  a  spiritual  father,  first  gives  permission 
to  wear  the  crown; — as  the  pope,  in  his  chaiaoter  of  holy 
father,  gave  a  similar  permission  lo  the  Jesuit,  John  the 
Third,  to  assume  that  of  P(»rtugal. 

Is  there,  then,  my  friend,  for  the  whole  human  race,  not 
merely  for  the  royal  parents,  a  higher  moral  and  intel- 
lectual sphere  of  action  than  that  of  tutor  to  a  prince ; 
who,  perhaps,  in  the  royal  child  holds  in  his  power  the 
future  of  half  a  century — a  something  which  may  either 
be  the  fructifying  germ  of  an  oak  forest,  or  the  powder 
train  of  a  mine  for  his  country  ?  If  it  be  granted  that  the 
first  circumstances  of  a  man's  education,  as  the  deepest  and 
richest,  bear  all  the  rest  which  time  heaps  on  him,  I  caninot 
consider  the  wish  too  bold,  but  only  natural,  that,  as  there 
are  normal  schools  for  teachers,  so  there  should  be  at  least 
one  of  that  kind  for  the  tutors  of  princes. 

But  I  will  now — so  as  to  have  something  to  put  in  my 
book — cast  the  nativity  of  the  past  and  present,  and  predic  • 
what  you  have  done  and  are  now  doing. 

I  suppose,  from  your  residence  in  the  country,  that  yon 
will  as  frequently  as  possible  forbid  the  court  to  your 
Friedanot  (a  fine-sounding  and  significant  name!),  and 
persuade  his  parents  to  see  him,  for  the  most  part,  without 
lookers  on.  If  the  cloud  of  flattery  may  be,  to  a  prince,  a 
falling  mist,  it  is  to  a  royal  child  a  rising  mist,  which  is 
followed  by  dark,  bad  weather.  How  else  than  by  distance 
can  you  protect  your  Friedanot  from  the  ladies  of  the  court, 
who  must  press  around  him,  allured  by  his  three  graces,  of 
being  a  prince,  a  child,  and  a  boy.  Than  this  union  there 
can  be  nothing  greater  in  a  woman's  eyes.     As  the  emperoi 


CHAP.  I.J  LEVANA.  285f. 

of  Morocco,  80  Agrell  tells  ns,  is  drawn  by  a  team  of  twelve 
state-horses  when  he  takes  a  drive ;  so  our  little  heir  to 
the  crown  can  command,  when  he  will,  twelve  children's 
carriages,  each  with  a  dozen  lady-drawers.  And  when  at 
last  n  becomes  twelve  years  old  he  will  be  absolutely 
worshipped  beforehand,  so  as  to  secure  his  adoration 
afterwards.  Character  and  childhood  are  both  at  once 
destroyed  by  early  gallantries  which  incite  to  gallantries,  , 
The  men  of  the  world  reserve  their  influence  for  this 
age.  If  any  thing,  like  poison  on  the  nerves,  destructively 
opposes  the  earnestness  of  a  royal  tutor's  labours — or, 
indeed,  of  any  teacher — it  is  the  worldly  views  of  worldly 
people,  even  when  honourable  and  impartial.  Like  the 
founder  of  their  order,  Helvetius,  these  modem  Helvetians, 
in  whom  no  Caesar  finds  an  enemy,  can  be  good  natured, 
lovers  of  the  arts,  farmer-generals  and  every  thing  good, 
but  not  martyrs  to  their  faith,  nor  keepers  of  their  word. 
In  other  respects  these  Helvetians  are  good  enough ;  like 
their  geographical  namesakes  they  are  lovers  of  cold, — 
herdsmen  on  the  heights  for  which  their  home- sick  hearts 
long  ;  "  no  gold,  no  Swiss  " — united  by  confederacy — 
upright  in  deeds,  if  not  in  words — without  much  money ; 
mere  door-keepers  of  palaces, — in  short,  men  who  willingly 
stand  and  suffer  themselves  to  be  ordered  about  as  guards 
and  hirelings  in  the  court  of  a  Louis  the  Fourteenth.  But 
such,  Adelhard,  are  not  fit  companions  for  an  heir-apparent. 
If  you  have  to  conduct  your  pupil  through  two  totally 
different  worlds,  out  of  the  one  into  the  other — out  of  that 
really  great  world  in  which  only  nobility  of  soul,  character, 
great  principles  and  comprehensive  views  are  valued — 
where  only  the  despisers  of  pleasure  and  the  passing  hour, 
the  men  of  eternity  stand — where  an  Epaminondas,  a 
Socrates,  a  Cato,  still  speak  from  their  tombs  and  deliver 
oracles  as  from  an  everlasting  Delphic  cavern — where 
earnestness  of  purpose  and  man  and  God  bring  all  things 
into  life ;  out  of  this  into  that  world  of  sham-greatness,  in 
which  all  that  is  great  and  departed  is  little  esteemed,  and 
what  is  trifling  and  present  is  alone  held  important — where 
every  thing  is  custom,  and  nothing  duty,  not  to  mention 
kingly  duty — where  the  whole  country  is  looked  upon  as 
an  estate,  all  offices  as  appendages  of  the  crown ;  where 


286  JEAN  PAUL  FEIEDKICH   EICHTER.      [fRAG.  V. 

inspiration  seems  a  passing  love  affair,  or  a  mere  artistic 
talent— if  you  have  to  do  this,  must  not  all  these  glitterini^ 
influences  destroy  that  of  the  tutor  ?  Must  not  the  child 
become  a  kind  of  double  creature,  a  double  stone,  half 
diamond  and  half  common  court  crystal,  which  needs  but 
the  application  of  heat  to  sever  the  scholastic  addition 
from  the  courtly  mass, — ^just  as  other  double  stones  are 
tried  and  burst  asunder  by  heat. 

You  are,  then,  right  in  regarding  the  easy  attainment 
of  a  glitteringly-cut  outside  as  a  small  recompense  for 
the  damage  done  by  people  of  the  world.  Must  he  not, 
without  your  help,  pass  his  whole  life  among  decorators 
and  manufacturers  of  cosmetics,  as  under  curling  machines 
for  royal  heads?  And  will  easiness  of  demeanour  ever 
become  difficult  to  him  who,  from  the  freedom  of  an 
upright  posture,  has  but  to  return  bows  ?  Nevertheless  it 
will  do  so ;  every  thing,  crime  excepted,  becomes  princes  ; 
they,  like  great  artists,  are  permitted  many  external  pecu- 
liarities ;  nay,  are  imitated  in  them :  and  what  in  lower 
stations  is  considered  want  of  good  manners,  in  the  highest 
is  held  to  denote  their  superabundance,  or  at  all  events, 
to  be  a  veil  of  Moses  drawn  over  the  splendour  of  the 
crown.  Stiff  citizen-manners  occupy  only  the  middle 
place,  the  extremities  approach  one  another  so  closely 
that  in  the  highest  ranks  the  freedom  of  the  savage  is 
renewed. 

But  you  will  reply  to  me  in  your  next  letter  and  com- 
plainingly  say,  I  can  take  my  Friedanot  nowhere  but  a 
court  will  follow  him :  where  a  prince  stamps  his  foot 
a  courtly  circle  rises — as  an  army  did  at  the  approach  of 
Pompey, — and  the  altars  of  incense  smoke  around  him  ; 
for  truly  the  middle  and  lower  ranks  flatter  their  prince 
more  injuriously,  that  is  more  grossly  ond  slavish^,  than 
the  nobility.  It  is  probably  on  this  account  that  many 
novel  writers  think  they  present  us  with  the  most  beauti- 
fully sculptured  heads  of  princes  on  their  coin  by  merely 
permitting  the  little  dauphin^  prince  of  Calabria,  prince 
of  Brazil,  protector  of  England,  to  be  educated  and  kept 
in  perfect  ignorance  of  his  future  rank.  In  this  case  the 
dauphin  apparently  imitates  the  Mamelukes,*  by  the  laws 

*  Boliiigbroke's  Political  Letters  concerning  Europe. 


CHAP.  I.]  LEV  ANA.  287 

of  whose  empire  only  he  may  ascend  the  throne  who  was 
not  born  upon  it.  The  opponents  of  these  few  novel 
writers  are  merely  the  whole  class  of  historians.  For 
although  Macchiavelli  remarks  that  the  best  among  the 
Roman  emperors  were  those  who  had  been  adopted,  yet — 
besides  the  exception  of  Augustus,  who  adopted  himself  to 
the  government,  and  also  besides  that  of  many  emperors 
chosen  by  the  senate  and  the  praetorian  band — other  his- 
tories are  opposed  to  that  of  Rome;  take,  for  instance, 
that  of  the  East  which  never  depicts  viziers,  beys,  and 
sultans,  brought  up  in  slave  ships  and  promoted  to  the 
ranks  of  pilot  and  captain,  as  better  princes  than  others. 
Further ;  have  the  popes  made  better  rulers  because  they 
were  not  born  to  be  popes  ?  And  when  (as  on  the  extremity 
of  the  opponent's  chess-board  a  pawn  may  become  a  queen) 
a  peasant,  Massaniello,  for  instance,  becomes  a  king — is 
his  government,  therefore,  so  very  markedly  different  from 
that  of  those  who  had  expected  it  for  twenty  years  ?  And, 
moreover,  in  the  olden  time  was  not  every  usurper  and 
destroyer  of  freedom  a  man  who,  in  his  childhood,  had 
possessed  no  prince's  tutor,  no  court,  no  roj^al  father  ? 

On  the  contrary,  a  prince  can  never  contemplate  soon 
enough  the  Tabor  of  the  throne,  so  that  in  after  years  he 
may  be  gloriously  transfigured  on  it,  and  not  hang  as  a 
cloud  on  the  mountain.  It  is  the  Sinai  on  which  he, 
praying,  shall  receive  the  laws  which,  in  their  reflected 
brightness,  ho  is  to  carry  down  to  the  desert.  I  could 
recommend  no  other  refuge  from  anticipated  courts  for  an 
heir-apparent  than  a  foreign  country,  where  the  native 
prince  would  draw  away  all  flatterers  from  the  stranger. 
J^ut  the  evils  consequent  on  the  necessary  contemplation 
o£  his  future  high  rank  may  be  guarded  against  in  many 
ways.  A  child's  views  of  life  must  necessarily  be  confused 
if  his  master  is  at  the  same  time  his  servant;  or,  like  a 
bad  royal  tutor,  a  compound  of  tyrant  and  slave.  There 
may  be  inequality,  but  let  it  be  upwards.  With  us  lower 
people  every  father  is  at  times  the  fellow-labourer  and 
fellow-teacher  of  the  schoolmaster  ;  should  not  the  father 
of  his  country  also  occasionally  l)e  the  father  of  his  son 
and  successor?  Antiquity  holds  out  the  example  of  princes 
who  were  the  play-fellows  of  their  children ;  how  much 


288  JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRICH  RICHTER.         [fRAG.  V. 

more  praise  would  they  merit  as  their  teachers!  I  can 
imagine  no  more  honourable  group  than  a  royal  father 
among  is  sons,  earnestly  instilling  into  them  the  high 
la%^3  of  the  kingly  office  which  he  himself  religiously 
observes. 

But  if  the  affairs  of  government  occupy  too  much  of  the 
father's  time,  or  if  this  recreation  would  abstract  him  too 
much  from  business,  the  queenly  mother  is  still  there 
with  the  powerful  influence  of  her  heart  and  of  her 
leisure.  Baron,  the  actor,  said  that  a  tragedian  should 
be  nursed  in  the  lap  of  queens.  It  seems  to  me  that  the 
dauphin,  whom  he  represents  and  imitates,  claims  the 
first  place  there ;  and  such  a  mother  will  be  more  usefully 
employed  teaching  her  son  than  her  husband  how  to 
govern.  "  Crowned  mother,  do  for  your  son  what  the 
uncrowned  mother  of  the  Gracchi  did  for  hers,  so  that  he 
may  be  as  noble  as  either  of  them,  and  more  fortunate 
than  both."  So,  my  dear  Adelhard,  would  I  speak  almost 
in  public,  in  the  hope  of  perhaps  cheering  some  princess 
who  has  thus  acted. 

It  were  also  desirable  if  kings'  children  could  associate 
with  their,  equals  in  the  school-room ; — I  mean  if  there 
were  a  school  for  princes,  in  a  higher  sense  than  that  near 
Naumburg.  We,  linked  together  in  a  community  of 
children,  were  all  educated  under  the  mutual  influence  of 
equals ;  the  heir  to  the  throne  sits  in  the  room  alone  with 
his  tutor.  Princes  only  learn  the  art  of  war  with  an 
army  of  fellow-students;  perhaps  that  is  an  additiwial 
reason  why  they  understand  and  like  it  best. 

I  am  not  without  the  expectation  that  you  attempt  to 
preserve  Friedanot,  although  he  is  now  more  than  eleven 
years  old,  from  poison  to  a  childlike  mind  by  obliging 
him  to  pay  deference  to  age  and  merit.  As  yet  he  is 
merely  a  subject,  like  his  tutor  and  even  his  mother. 
This  is  a  matter  of  great  importance ;  for  the  child  who 
does  not  respect  grown-up  people  as  such,  readily  enters 
the  path  of  contempt  for  his  fellow-men, — a  vice  very  pre- 
valent on  the  throne.  If  rank,  especially  a  prospective 
one,  outweigh  the  man  to  whom  properly  he  ought  to 
bow,  in  after  years  the  masses  of  citizens  will,  in  his 
princely  eye,  resemble  those  stags'  heads  in  Fontainebleau 


CHAP.  I.]  LEVANA.  289 

under  which  was  inscribed — *'  Such  or  such  a  Louis  did 
me  the  honour  of  shooting  me ;"  and  the  smaller  select 
number  will  be  like  certain  royal  stag-hounds  in  the  same 
country,  which  a  courtier  addressed  as  "  Vous,  Monsieur 
Chien,"  though  in  former  times  the  term  "  monsieur"  was 
only  applied  to  the  saints,  and  afterwards  was  refused 
even  to  the  five  directors  of  Paris.  Since  in  the  eye  of 
princes,  as  in  that  of  the  law,  or  still  better  in  the  union 
of  both,  individual  peculiarities  are  lost  in  one  living 
mass  of  souls,  it  is  an  easy  change  for  a  crowned  despiser 
of  humanity  to  regard  those  souls  as  the  mere  mechanism 
of  peace  and  war,  till  one  man  only  seems  to  exist — 
himself. 

Therefore,  let  a  prince,  as  long  as  he  is  a  child,  always 
measure  merit  by  inches ;  for  inches  are  to  him  yet  as 
though  they  were  long  years,  and  years  as  munificent 
gifts.  It  is  certainly  a  trifle  that  you,  as  I  venture  tc 
guess,  contrary  to  custom,  do  not  permit  the  servants  to 
help  the  prince  first  when  old*^r  guests  are  at  table ;  but 
the  opposite  method  would  not  be  a  trifle.  A  Louis  the 
Fifteenth  (how  great  a  love  of  children  that  monarch  had 
in  the  days  of  his  innocence !)  may  always  give  his  play- 
fellows an  order  of  blue  and  white  ribbon,*  and  a  medal 
with  the  picture  of  the  pavilion  in  which  they  played ; 
but  the  child  should  not  receive  the  ribbon  of  an  order 
appropriate  to  mature  years  as  a  leading-string ;  still  less 
should  he,  as  the  monarch  I  have  just  named  and  his 
predecessor,  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  hold  a  lit  de  justice 
almost  in  his  cradle,  or,  like  other  royal  children,  grasp 
the  staff  of  a  commander  in  the  hands  which  yet  feel  tho 
rod.  Why  might  not  as  well  little  ministers  and  presi- 
dents surround  the  throne  of  the  royal  child,  and  little 
ambassadors  of  the  highest  rank  accompany  him  in  his 
carriage?  This  degradation  of  the  state  and  of  human 
nature,  works  like  a  destructive  poison  on  the  excitable 
mind  of  the  child.  To  this  cause  may  be  traced  that 
jiremature,  worn-out,  shallow-cunning,  cool  expression  on 
the  faces  of  so  many  royal  children, — an  expression  com- 
pounded of  the  presumption  of  rank  and  youth,  and  the 
weakness  of  age. 

*  Fragmena  de  Lettres  orig.  dc  Mad.  Elizabeth  de  Baviere.  etc.  1.  253 
i.  U 


290  JEAN  FvA  Jh   TRIEDEICR  EICHTER.        [FRAG.  Vi 

Strange  that,  while  writing  this,  your  last  letter  but 
one,  to  which  you  referred  in  your  last  epistle,  has  just 
come  to  hand.  I  now  understand  much.  Your  recent 
Friedanot's  festival  might  really  be  celebrated  as  the 
alliance  between  my  prophecies  and  your  rules;  or  as 
the  pas.^age  from  what  has  preceded  to  what  is  about  to 
follow,  from  negative  to  positive  education. 

To  proceed,  then :  only  princes  and  women  can  be 
educated  for  a  determinate  future ;  but  all  other  men  for 
one  which  is  uncertain,  for  the  empire  of  chance  in  their 
aims  and  ranks.  Kow  this  is  the  living  spirit  of  jour 
life,  and  of  that  entrusted  to  you.  The  education  of  a 
prince,  like  his  position  in  the  state,  is  the  only  one  of  the 
kind.  As  your  pupil  can  never  think  too  modestly  of 
himself,  so  can  he  never  think  too  proudly  of  his  dignity ; 
the  reverse  of  this  produces  misery  everywhere.  His 
office,  a  high  office  at  the  altar  of  the  state,  demands  from 
a  fallible  human  form  the  powerful  agency  of  a  god.  He 
is  not  merely  the  first  servant  of  the  state,  but  its  very 
heart,  which  alternately  receives  and  sends  out  its  life 
blood  ;  he  is  its  centre  of  gravity  which  gives  form  to  its 
varied  powers.  Then  let  German  philosophy  show  him 
in  his  high  station  t^omething  different  from  what  the 
persiflage  of  French  philosophy  and  that  of  worldliness 
exhibits;  which  endeavours  to  represent  the  throne  as  the 
highest  heritable  place  at  court,  or  as  a  regency  with  a 
handsome  income,  and  the  country  as  a  vast  regiment  at 
once  ridiculous  and  useful.  Ah !  verily  the  ancient  error 
of  regarding  princes  as  the  sent  and  anointed  of  God 
(which  in  fact  every  man  is,  only  in  different  degrees — - 
the  man  of  genius,  for  instance,  or  every  rational  creature 
as  compared  with  the  beasts)  is  much  nobler,  and  more 
efficacious  for  good,  than  the  modern  error  of  declaring 
tliem  only  to  be  the  ambassadors  of  selfish  extortions,  that 
is,  of  the  devil.  But  let  German  earnestness  of  heart 
show  the  young  eagle-prince  his  wings,  his  mountains, 
and  his  sun.  AVhen  some  warm,  benevolent,  but  too  rash, 
genius  of  the  earth  saw  the  erring  eff'orts  of  humanity  to 
^hape  its  course,  and  how,  broken  up  among  individuals, 
it,  like  the  sea,  only  raised  waves,  but  gave  them  no 
direction,  he  longed  to  give  the  ocean  a  boundary  and  a 


CHAP.  I.]  LEV  ANA.  291 

rapid  current ;  then  he  called  np  the  first  great  king  to 
collect  the  scattered  forces  and  guide  them  to  one  end. 
Moreover,  this  genius  would  have  experienced  the  bliss  of 
seeing  nations  linked  together  round  our  globe  like  the 
glittering  girdle  of  Venus,  had  he  not  forgotten  something 
which  another  and  better  genius,  who  always  permits 
more  men  of  genius  than  spiritual  monarchs  to  appear  at 
the  same  time,  remembered.  1  mean,  if  he  had  taken  care 
that  a  continued  succession  of  good  kings  had  drawn  a 
holy  family  circle  round  the  globe,  and  described  a  ruling 
line  of  beauty,  happiness  and  honour  through  all  time. 
Oh !  what  miii;ht  not  poor  humanity  have  become  if,  like 
the  thirty  popes  who,  one  after  another,  continued  building 
the  great  cathedral  at  Kome,  a  contemporaneous  and  suc- 
cessive band  of  princes  had,  joining  temple  to  temple,  so 
urged  on  tlie  great  temple-building  of  humanity!  Can 
humanity  blame  fate  for  opening  to  it,  through  one  indi- 
vidual, the  way  to  the  highest  elevation  or  the  lowest 
degradation,  when  one  reckons  the  number  of  princes 
with  free  power  to  be  the  leaders  of  their  age  and  country, 
and,  like  many  flat  glasses  placed  at  once  before  the  sun, 
fan(;ie8  them  united  into  one  celestial  luminary  ?  It  is  not 
Heaven's  fault,  but  man's,  if  they  have  more  readily  con- 
Terted  themselves  into  the  war-gods  and  scourges  of  states, 
than  into  their  protecting  deities. 

I  would,  therefore,  imitate  you  and  teach  the  prince 
his  dignity ;  because  only  he  adorns  the  station  who 
believes  himself  to  be  adorned  by  it.  Piinces  are  apt  to 
think  meanly  of  princes,  as  mountains  look  little  when 
riewed  from  mountains. 

I  would  indeed,  as  your  fellow-labourer,  prepare  yearly, 
— say,  on  his  birth-day,— a  feast  of  dedication  for  the 
young  heir-apparent,  a  rehearsal  of  his  coronation,  in 
which  the  holiness  of  his  future,  the  inviolableness  of  his 
soul,  should  be  gloriously  and  intimately  presented  to  the 
young  eye  longing  after  virtue,  under  the  triumphal  arch 
of  great  and  free  nations,  in  sight  of  the  arms  and  banners 
of  his  ancestors  and  of  all  past  ages.  On  such  a  day  he 
might  also  look  down  into  the  abyss  of  fallen  nations. 
1  et  him  learn  by  heart  Plutarch's  histories  of  the  great, 
more  useful  to  him  than  the  more  recent ;  and  let  him 

U  2 


292  JEAN   PAUL   FKIEDEICH  KICHTER.     |   [FRAG,  T. 

every  day  pray  out  of  the  meditations  of  Antoninus. 
Let  that  noble  order, — the  name,  Father  of  his  country, 
which  the  great  Camillus  first  bore,  •  as  founder  of  the 
order,  and  subsequently  Cicero,  the  enemy  of  Catiline,  as 
a  member,  until  it  lost  its  glory  and  sank  down  upon  a 
Caesar,  an  Augustus,  and  such -like  men, — burn  before 
him  like  an  illumination  on  the  seven  hills  of  freedom. 
He  must  not  consider  himself  as  a  commander-in-chief  of 
all  the  forces,  nor  as  a  minister  of  foreign  aifairs,  nor  as 
president  of  the  council,  nor  as  chief  justice,  nor  as  a 
rector  magnificus  of  all  the  sciences,  but  as  the  protector 
OF  HIS  COUNTRY,  in  the  highest  sense  of  that  word ;  as  one 
who  has  his  eye  on  every  department  in  the  state,  like 
the  true  judge  of  works  of  art  who  can  appreciate  every 
form  of  beauty.  He  should  be  a  Jupiter  who  bears  his 
satellites  and  his  courtly  ring  at  once  round  himself  and 
round  their  common  sun. 

"  According  to  the  usual  requirements  of  learned  men," 
you  write,  "  a  prince  who  would  govern  well  ought  to 
unite  in  his  own  person  the  knowledge  of  all  his  ministers, 
so  as  to  be  able  to  judge  of  all  their  affairs.  But  the 
knowledge  of  things,  which  cannot  all  be  embraced  by 
one  individual,  is  less  necessary  and  less  possible  than  the 
knowledge  of  men  by  whom  they  must  be  proposed  and 
executed.  Consequently,  if  the  prince  have  only  character, 
and  if  that  have  matured  steadily  and  purely  under  the 
eye  of  his  teacher,  he  will  be  able  both  to  penetrate  into 
matters  and  to  use  vigorous  measures."  You  might  have 
copied  this  out  of  my  own  soul !  If  men  have  been  easily 
able  to  blind  us,  yet,  in  a  hundred  cases,  some  weakness 
in  our  heart,  rather  than  any  weakness  in  our  eyes,  has 
been  first  to  blame.  Among  princes  a  pure  and  firm 
character  is  especially  needed  for  seeing  and  acting ;  for 
on  the  throne  the  nerve  of  sight  is  easily  transformed 
into  the  motive-nerve  of  the  muscles.  Mere  goodness 
without  character  will,  or  may,  be  governed  and  used 
by  all  the  enemies  of  a  people ;  whereas  character  without 
goodness  can  only  be  acted  on  by  one  enemy  of  the 
people — itself. 

The  whole  present  time  is  a  regicide  of  character,  espe- 
cially of  all  healthiness  of  character ;  for  over  it  poisonous 


CHAP.  I.J  LEVANA.  293 

victims  are  passed  to  bodies  and  souls,  and  for  the  sacrifice 
of  a  god  a  man  is  offered  up.  Hence  so  many  marrowless 
but  sceptre-griping  arms ;  hence  the  life  of  so  many 
princes  is  but  a  passive  "  council  of  five  hundred ;"  and 
even  good  may  only  be  done  and  published  by  permission 
of  the  subjects. 

So  much  the  better,  dear  Adelhard,  that  you  endeavour 
to  give  your  pupil  a  strong  body ;  only  watch  over  him 
till  he  has  passed  through  the  usual  powder  mines  of  royal 
youth, — the  capitals,  for  instance,  of  the  grand  tour,  a 
few  middle-aged  women,  and  his  majority. 

Fiom  your  letter  I  can  perceive  the  truth  of  the  sup- 
position I  cherish,  that  you  do  not  recommend  or  cultivate 
in  Friedanot  any  active  love  of  the  arts  of  painting,  music 
or  architecture,  lest,  as  you  say,  "  he  should  convert  govern- 
ment into  a  subservient  art."  Nero,  truly,  had  a  genius 
for  art, — as  Frederick  the  Great  had  a  genius  for  govern- 
ment,— his  whole  life,  from  the  time  of  his  subjection  to 
the  laws  of  art,*  even  in  the  midst  of  his  cruelties  and 
down  to  his  last  sigh,  testifies  as  much  feeling  for  art  as 
absence  of  feeling  for  humanity.  If,  for  instance,  a  prince 
devote  himself — not  to  adduce  more  ancient,  still  less 
modem,  examples — like  the  Macedonian  king  Europus, 
to  making  candles  (in  a  metaphorical  sense  that  would  be 
good) ;  or,  like  the  Parthian  kings,  to  sharpening  swords 
(that  were  good  in  a  different  way) ;  or,  like  Attalus 
Philomator,  to  the  cultivation  of  poisonous  plants  f  (this 
only  admits  of  no  good  metaphorical  sense)  the  whole 
court,  suppose  that  of  Attalus,  would  be  converted  into  a 
garden,  and  every  one  would  seize  the  royal  gardener  by 
his  weak  side, — his  botanical  mania.  All  courtiers  wisk 
their  king  to  love  something  besides  government  and  his 
country.  Every  great  lord,  according  to  the  law,  must 
practise  some  handicraft ;  but  only  in  the  same  way  that 
every  Mussulman,  and  every  Kabbi  among  the  Jews,  must 
understand  some  art,  and  not,  as  Montesquieu  and  some 
others  suppose,  in  order  that  he  may  refrain  from  strang- 
ling people  for  pastime :  for,  as  an  inspired  person,  h    is 

♦  He  obeyed  the  orche»tra-regulation,  never  to  sit  down,  to  have  no 
occAsiun  for  pocket-handkerchief  or  spittoon,  &c.    Tac.  Ann.  xiv.  15. 
t  Alex,  ttb  Akx.  iii.  21. 


294  JEAN  PAUL   FEIEDEICII   EICHTER.        [fRAG.  V. 

allowed  free  by  his  religion,  fourteen  of  such  for  slaughter 
every  day.*  I  should  suppose  that  he  could  not  claim,  by 
club-law  of  his  handicraft,  any  more  for  his  sword. 

Am  I  not,  then,  agreed  in  opinion  with  you  when  1  say 
that  princes  need  no  subordinate  pursuit  any  more  than 
ancient  statues  needed  the  adornment  of  colours?  How 
much  useless  knowledge  about  history,  languages  an4  art, 
might  and  ought  to  be  spared  them  ! 

A  general  love  of  science,  like  an  alternation  between 
two  heights,  enriches  and  refreshes  royalty,  as  was  exem- 
plified in  Frederick  the  Great.  There  is  a  wider  prospect 
from  Parnassus  than  from  the  throne.  I  wish  that  even 
there,  as  in  the  high  schools,  reading  and  learning  were 
called  government.  And  what  greater  ground  for  alarm 
would  there  be,  if  the  king  were  president  of  the  great 
academy  of  all  the  sciences,  than  that  favourites  and 
courtiers  would  become  members  of  it,  and  understand  a 
great  deal  ?  And  is  it  not  very  much  better  that  he,  like 
Louis  XIY.,  should  expend  sixty-six  thousand  three  hun- 
dred livres  in  pensions  to  learned  men,  than  that,  like  the 
same  king,  he  should  waste  thirty- three  millions  of  livres 
in  the  mere  lead  of  the  palace  at  Versailles  and  its  water- 
works ?  f  Openly  tell  your  Friedanot  that  in  every 
country,  where  the  press  is  free  as  well  as  where  it  is 
submitted  to  censorship,  there  is  no  one  to  whom  so  many 
books  are  forbidden  as  to  the  king  himself;  the  censors 
will  scarcely  allow  him  a  newspaper.  Although  the  king 
need  not  know  so  much  of  law  as  his  lord  chancellor,  nor 
so  much  political  economy  as  his  prime  minister,  he  yet 
must  know  as  much  or  more  of  the  art  of  war  than  his 
first  general.  This  union  of  sceptre  and  sword  is  unmis- 
takeable.  The  royal  infant  even  is  consecrated  to  no  other 
inaugural  post  of  honour  than  that  of  war.  A  helmeted 
preface  (^prcefatio  galeatd)  precedes  his  life ;  he  passes  his 
mornings  in  the  arsenal.  No  prince  scruples  to  serve  in 
war  among  the  soldiers  of  a  greater  foreign  prince  than 
himself,  and  to  fight  and  bleed  for  him  as  unconditionally 
as  his  meanest  subject ;  but  he  would  consider  it  beneath 

*  The  Prince    Kantemir's  History  of   the  Ottoman    Empire,  in 
Struve's  Hebenstunden,  v. 
t  Pieces  interessantes  et  pen  connues,  par.  M.  D.  L.  P.,  I.  1805. 


CHAP.  I.J  LEV  ANA.  295 

liis  dignity  to  be  the  same  monarch's  prime  minister, 
] 'resident  of  his  council,  or  even  general-in-chief  of  his 
f^  'rces. 

Whence  arises,  and  why  is  there,  this  equality  of  royal 
and  warlike  honour  in  this  and  other  points,  as  if  the 
prince  were  only  the  first  servant  of  the  state  by  being 
its  foremost  fighter? 

Voltaire's  sajang,  "  The  first  king  was  a  successful 
soldier,"  and  the  corollary  to  be  drawn  thence  that  "  A 
successful  king  is  the  first  soldier,"  does  not  sufficiently 
explain  his  position  in  a  state  by  his  position  before  the^e 
was  a  state.  Moreover,  war  is  now  only  the  exception, 
and  peace  the  rule ;  and  however  much  the  country  be 
turned  into  an  arsenal,  and  the  throne  into  a  fortress,  yet 
preparations  for  peace  must  be  carried  on  as  long  and  as 
industriously  as  preparations  for  war.  But  the  prepon- 
derance of  the  arts  of  war  over  those  of  peace,  in  all  per- 
sons destined  for  the  throne,  may  be  explained  and  justified 
by  two  totally  difierent  reasons  and  sentiments.  In  the 
first  instance,  the  mutual  defence  of  individuals  formed 
the  state ;  and  afterwards,  as  each  naticm  experienced  the 
necessity  of  defending  itself  against  the  aggressions  of 
other  nations,  the  king  seemed  to  perform  his  duty  to  the 
state  best  by  watching  over  its  frontiers,  not  by  becoming 
chief  architect,  food-provider,  farmer,  coiner,  and  regulator 
of  its  domestic  affairs ;  he  had  rather  to  act  externally  by 
the  law  of  the  stronger,  than  internally  by  the  power  of 
the  affections. 

One  evil  was  a  necessary  consequence  of  this  state  of 
things,  that  nations, — which,  in  the  last  resort,  only  con- 
sist of  individuals — owing  to  this  love  of  war  in  their 
governors,  fell  into  that  very  condition  out  of  which  the 
individuals  had  endeavoured  to  extricate  themselves  by 
combining  to  form  a  state.  So  little  yet  does  man  regard 
the  interest*  of  man  !  Confined  to  his  clod  of  earth,  like 
the  insect  to  its  leaf,  he  does  not  perceive  that  every  war 
on  the  face  of  the  globe  is,  in  fact,  a  civil  war ;  and  a  dark 
sea,  in  a  spiritual  sense  as  truly  as  in  physical  fact,  gives, 
by  its  concealing  cloak,  the  appearance  of  separate  en- 
chanting islands  to  the  girdle  of  mountains  which  sur- 
rounds the  world. 


296  JEAN  PAUL  FKTEDEICH  EICHTEE.       [fEAG.  V. 

Bat  the  monarch  has  a  yet  weightier  ground  for  his 
love  of  war ;  the  sentirzent  that  all  dignity  arises  from 
moral  worth,  and  that  the  chief  basis  of  manly  dignity 
consists  in  courage  or  honour.  The  brave  prince  covers 
his  head  and  his  inner  man  with  a  crown  different  from 
that  which  rests  on  his  outward  form.  Courage  or  honour 
is  expected  in  every  man,  but  not  talent.  The  prince, 
like  the  first  nobleman  in  the  highest  rank  of  nobility, 
must  oppose  his  enemy  with  the  courageous  point  of 
honour,  as  though  it  were  a  bright  focus  of  burning  rays. 
Courage  is  a  virtue  of  no  doubtful  seeming ;  there  can  be 
no  contradiction,  no  diversity  of  opinion,  about  it.  A 
prince  who  exposes  his  body,  carefully  protected  and  con- 
secrated by  the  state,  as  though  it  were  a  common  one,  to 
the  rank-scorning  bullet,  against  which,  in  a  foreign  land, 
his  crown  is  no  helmet,  but  only  a  mark,  gathers  laurels 
with  his  own  hand  in  the  e3^es  of  thousands.  But  the 
honour  of  peaceful  talents  is  not  so  uncontestedly  ascribed 
to  him,  because  many  a  prince  has  been  a  sun  which 
the  minister  must  surround  with  his  clouds  ere  it  emitted 
beams.* 

I  grant  that  war  is  accompanied  with  certain  by- 
charms.  It  is  well  minutely  to  dissect  them  before 4iim 
to  whom  you  would  fain  render  them  hateful.  A  king 
likes  to  govern,  especially  when  he  can  do  so  easily  and 
absolutely ;  on  the  drum  he  finds  a  moveable  throne ;  and 
the  art  of  war  is  surrounded  with  a  poetical  halo;  it 
is  more  definite  and  more  obvious  than  the  art  of  govern- 
ment, and  the  movements  of  the  general's  baton  are  more 
clearly  marked  by  the  eyes  of  men  than  are  those  of  the 
sceptre. 

The  powder-mill  of  war  moves  on  the  wheels  of  fortune. 
As  the  southern  promontory  of  Africa,  so  here  the  head- 
land of  storms  is  called  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  And  to 
what  lottery  could  a  ruler  more  cheerfully  subscribe  than 
to  that  of  war — especially  because  he  only  ventures  foreign 
possessions,  and  wins  no  part  of  his  home  inheritance, 
because  he  wins  the  whole?  Further,  nothing  irritates  a 
youth  so  much  as  to  be  obliged  to  mount  the  throne  when 

♦  According  to  Herschel,  only  the  cloud-covering  of  the  sun  givec 
light,  and  the  body  of  sun  only  spots. 


CHAP.  I.J  LEVANA.  297 

of  mature  age,  and  then  find  his  whole  life,  even  down  to 
the  horizon,  marked  out  and  enclosed.  The  royal  youth 
longs,  in  the  first  place,  to  do  something  in  life;  and,  in 
the  second,  to  render  himself  immortal  by  if.  Now,  for 
the  accomplishment  of  the  first  wish,  what  means  lie  so 
near  him,  or  seem  so  glorious  to  his  fancy,  as  war,  which 
opens  to  him  a  career  in  foreign  countries?  or  what  can 
gratify  the  second  desire  more  easily  than  the  field  of 
battle,  which  matures  in  one  day  the  precious  flower  of 
immortality,  which  would  require  a  whole  life  to  blossom 
on  the  throne?  The  noble  Henry  IV.  of  France  said, 
"  I  would  rather  gird  on  my  armour  than  make  laws.'* 
It  is  on  the  same  principle  that  novices  in  poetry,  and 
novices  on  the  dramatic  stage,  make  their  first  essa^^s  in 
the  horrible,  the  glory  arising  from  which  is  easily  and 
quickly  gained. 

I  think  you  say  in  one  of  j'our  letters  that  the  satiety 
princes  experience  of  the  praise  and  emulation  of  inferiors 
is  apt  to  engender  a  warlike  longing  for  a  contest  with 
kings  and  enemies  before  the  eyes  of  all  Europe.  Very 
true !  The  poisonous  air  of  coiirts  readily  communicates 
that  yawning  fever  of  which  so  many  died  in  Italy 
during  the  seventh  century.  Men  seek  to  clear  the  air 
with  gunpowder. 

But  how  can  a  young  prince  ever  behold  the  dark  side 
of  the  glittering  form  of  war,  that  hellish  stream  which 
surrounds  the  living  earth  and  is  peopled  with  the  dead? 
For  it  is  in  truth  necessary  that  he  should  do  so,  especially 
for  Germany,  which  is  becoming  more  and  more  the  Hyde 
Park  and  Bois  de  Boulogne  to  which  Europe  resorts  when 
it  resolves  to  fight.  Will  you  let  him  hear  the  chorus  of 
all  wise  men  and  poets  cursing  war,  the  last  ghost  and 
savage  army  of  barbarism  ?  Will  you,  before  war,  preach 
such  a  sermon  as  this  on  peace  to  the  king  who  is  about 
to  hurl  his  torcli-like  missive  to  kindle  the  fire  of  war? 
**  Consider  well :  one  step  beyond  your  frontiers  changes 
the  whole  face  of  two  empires ;  thine  own  is  consumed 
behind  thee,  thine  enemy's  before  thee.  That  moment  an 
earthquake  takes  possession  of  both,  and  labours  to  the 
destruction  of  ^both  ;  all  ancient  law  courts,  all  judgment- 
seats,  are  overturned ;  heights  and  depths  are  confounded 


298  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   KICHTER.        [fEAG.  V. 

tof2:etlier.  It  is  a  last  day,  full  of  rising  sinners  and 
falling  stars  ;  it  is  the  tribunal  at  which  the  devil  judges 
the  world,  where  bodies  condemn  spirits,  physical  force 
the  power  of  love.  Consider  it,  0  prince !  Every  soldier 
in  this  empire  of  lawlessness  becomes  thy  crowned  brother 
in  a  foreign  land,  bearing  the  sword  of  justice  without  her 
balance,  and  governing  more  despotically  than  thyself. 
Every  meanest  drudge  in  the  enemy's  ranks  is  thy  king 
and  judge,  carrying  in  his  hand  an  axe  and  a  halter  for 
thee.  The  arbitrary  powers  of  force  and  chance  only  sit 
upon  the  double  throne  of  conscience  and  of  knowledge. 
Two  nations  are  converted,  half  into  slave  dealers,  half 
into  slaves,  mingled  without  order  among  one  another. 
In  the  eyes  of  higher  beings,  the  human  race  has  become 
an  assemblage  of  lawless,  conscienceless,  stone-blind  beasts 
and  machines,  which  robs,  devours,  strikes,  bleeds,  and 
dies.  Even  granting  that  justice  be  on  thy  side,  yet  by 
the  first  line  of  a  manifesto,  as  by  an  earthquake,  thou 
lettest  loose  the  chained  devils  of  injustice  out  of  their 
prison-house !  The  dread  despotism  thus  enthroned  is  so 
great  that  little  misdeeds  never  reach  thy  ears,  and  great 
crimes  only  by  their  frequent  repetition.  For  the  per- 
mission to  slay  and  take  possession  includes  in  itself  all 
lesser  crimes.  Even  the  unarmed  citizen's  voice  is  heard 
amidst  the  screams  and  discord,  exchanging  all  his  plans 
of  life  for  a  few  moments'  indulgence  and  lawless  freedom, 
treated  by  the  allied  soldiers  as  partly,  and  by  their  oppo- 
nents as  altogether  an  enemy.  Think  of  all  this,  0  prince, 
ere  thou  hide  thy  light  amid  the  locust-clouds  of  war, 
and  ere  thou  make  the  warriors  of  a  stranger  the  judges 
and  executioners  in  thy  hitherto  justly  governed  land,  or 
ere  thou  give  thine  own  soldiers  such  power  in  the  con- 
quered country ! " 

At  all  events,  much  might  be  done.  We  should  endea- 
vour to  verify  the  expressions  of  a  history  or  a  newspaper, 
so  short  and  so  lightly  passed  over,  "  Battlefield,  distress 
of  the  besieged,  a  hundred  waggons  of  wounded ;"  which 
by  their  perpetual  repetition  have  passed  from  living 
figures  to  paintings,  and  lastly,  to  mere  sounds ;  we  should 
picture  them  in  all  their  terrible  details,  in  the  suffering 
which  one  waggon  bears  and  fearfully  increases,  in  the  one 


CHAP.  I.]  LEVANA.  299 

aj^onizing  day  of  a  single  fainting  and  dying  soldier.  Not 
only  history,  in  which  all  ages  and  nations  bleed,  but  our 
common  newspapers  and  way  of  speaking,  and  the  scien- 
tific appearance  of  warlike  preparations  for  surgical  assist- 
ance, change  wounds  into  words,  and  the  monstrous  amount 
of  suffering  into  letters.  Hence,  the  same  minister  who 
tranquilly  observes  the  hygrometer  of  war's  blood}^  rain, 
and  cheerfully  orders  a  bath  of  blood  for  two  nations,  is 
overcome  by  the  wounds  and  tears  of  a  stage  play,  merely 
because  the  poet's  art  transfoims  the  words  back  to  their 
living  meaning.  A  prince  Avhose  tendencit  s  you  feared 
might  be  conducted  over  a  bloody  battle-field  with  the 
same  warning  advantage  as  accrues  to  children  of  a  dif- 
ferent class  who  are  led  through  a  hospital.  But  God 
grant  that  humanity  may  ever  fail  to  offer  such  schools 
and  such  remedies ! 

Properly — and  this  might  be  instructively  said  to  a 
prince — the  people  only  should  decide  upon  war  with 
another  nation,  that  is,  upon  a  return  to  the  first  state  of 
nature;  especially  as  they  only  gather  its  bitter,  not  its 
sweet,  fruits;  and  should  deteimine  whether  they  are 
willing  to  give  themselves  up  a»  a  sacrifice  to  the  storms 
and  tempests  of  war.  It  is  a  crying  sin  against  Heaven 
that  one  king,  for  an  offensive  expression  from  another 
king,  should  involve  two  nations  in  mortal  strife.  In 
reading  modem  history  one  shudders  to  see  how  the 
merest  trifles  have  kindled  the  fires  of  war;  how  a 
woman's  pin,  or  an  ambassador's  finger,  has  been  the 
conductor  of  a  thunder-storm  ravaging  whole  countries. 
The  wars  of  modern  times  ought  certainly  to  strike  sol- 
diers only,  not  the  ranks  of  unarmed  citizens.  When  the 
more  active  part  of  the  latter  disturb  the  operations  of 
the  former,  as  in  shooting  from  houses,  they  at  once 
appeal  to  the  right  of  distinction,  and  proceed  to  attack 
and  punish  them ;  but  why  should  the  unarmed  classes, 
without  the  advantages,  yet  participate  in  all  the  suffer- 
ings, plunder,  imprisonment,  &c.,  of  those  who  are  armed? 
One  or  all  of  these  three  lemedies  must  be  applied  to  this 
terrible  coil,  in  order  that  the  futu  e  may  atone  for  the 
past :  either  that  naval  conflicts  may  be  carried  on  without 
letters  of  marque,  and  that  in  land  fights  the  soldiers  may 


300  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDEICH   RICHTER.        [fRAG.  V. 

be  placed  in  some  des<  rt,  as  the  scene  of  their  many-voiced 
and  many-handed  duel;  or  that,  as  in  republics  which 
have  fallen  to  destruction  or  risen  to  an  unearthly  life, 
eveiy  citizen  should  be  a  soldi(:'r,  and  consequently  every 
soldier  a  citizen ;  or,  finally,  that  the  eternal  banner  of 
peace  should  hang  down  from  heaven,  and  flutter  in  the 
pure  ether  above  the  earth. 

I  have  an  idea  that  either  you,  or  one  of  your  friends, 
once  declared  that  history— the  long  war  report  and 
bulletin  of  humanity — imparted  the  infection  of  war  to 
young  princes.  But  I  would  almost  trust  to  it  as  the 
remedy  for  the  love  of  war.  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden 
could  scarcely  have  imbibed  his  passion  for  glory  and 
conquest  from  the  mere  perusal  of  Curtius's  Life  of 
Alexander,  since  Alexander  had  the  same  passion  without 
having  read  his  biography;  and  Cassar,  also,  without 
knowing  more  of  Curtius  than  his  hero.  In  history  may 
be  found  the  test  of  the  anchors  and  swords  of  sea  and 
land  fights.  It  alone  shows  to  the  monarch,  thirsting 
for  glory,  how  little  mere  bravery  appertains  to  glory ; 
for  a  cowardly  nation  is  more  rare  upon  the  earth  than 
a  brave  man.  What  nation,  in  ancient  or  modern  times, 
is  not  brave  ?  At  present,  for  instance,  all  Europe  is  so  ; 
Eusfiians,  Danes,  Swedes,  Austrians,  English,  Hessians, 
French,  Bavarians,  and  Prussians,  all  are  brave.  The 
lower  Eome's  free  spirit  sank,  the  more  wildly  and 
vehemently  rose  the  merely  brave  spirit ;  Catiline,  Cgesar, 
Augustus,  had  conquerors  for  their  servants.  The  fre- 
quent arming  of  the  ancient  slaves,  as  of  the  modern 
beggars,  testifies  against  the  value  of  the  common  bravery 
of  fists  and  wounds.  Iphicrates.  the  Athenian,  said  that 
the  best  soldiers  were  those  who  loved  plunder  and 
violence ;  and  General  Fischer  has  added  to  these,  vaga- 
bonds. Cannot  a  monarch  wish  to  shine  upon  posterity 
with  something  else  than  the  showy  tiger-spots  of  a 
conqueror,  in  which  the  Timurs,  Attilas,  Dessatines,  and 
other  scourges  of  God,  or  knouts  of  the  devil,  outdo  him  ? 
How  coldly  does  one  walk  in  history  over  the  countless 
battle-fields  which  fill  the  earth  with  beds  of  death! 
And  with  what  curses  does  one  hasten  past  the  crown 
which,  like  the  ajutage,  or  leaden  head  of  a  pipe  raisea 


CHAP.  I.]  LEVANA.  301 

]\y  the  upward  gushing  of  a  fountain,  is  only  kept  up  by 
starting  streams  of  blood !  But  where  an  eternal  glory- 
hovers  round  some  heroes,  as  those  of  i\Iarathon's  plain 
and  Thermopylae's  pass,  there  other  spirits  fought  and 
fell, — heavenly  visions  of  the  courage  of  freedom.  And 
whatever  individual  stands  greatly  forth  in,  history  and 
fills  its  spaces,  does  it  not  from  any  pyramid  of  skulls 
erected  on  battle-fields;  but  a  great  soul  hovers  there, 
like  the  form  of  an  unearthly  world  glorified  in  the  night, 
and  touches  the  stars  and  the  earth. 

For  there  is  a  nobler  courage,  which  once,  though  not 
long,  Sparta,  Athens  and  Rome  possessed ;  the  courage  of 

Cce  and  of  freedom,  the  bravery  which  showed  itself  at 
Qe.  Many  a  nation,  a  cowardly  slave  in  its  own 
country  but  a  bold  hero  out  of  it,  resembles  the  falcon 
(though  become  tame,  unlike  it,  rather  by  sleeping  thaa 
"by  sleeplessness)  which  is  carried  hooded  on  the  wrist  of 
the  falconer,  until  left  to  its  ancient  freedom,  a  momen- 
tary wooer  of  the  air,  it  boldly  and  bravely  vanquishes 
some  new  bird  and  then  returns  with  it  to  the  slavish 
earth.  But  the  truly,  because  freely,  brave  people  carries 
on  its  war  of  freedom  at  home,  against  every  hand  which 
would  stay  its  flight  or  blind  its  eye  ;  this,  indeed,  is  the 
longest  and  bravest  war,  and  the  only  one  which  admits 
no  truce.  Just  so  brave,  and  in  a  higher  sense,  may  a 
monarch  be.  Let  the  great  ideal  of  art,  to  unite  dignity 
with  repose,  be  the  ideal  of  the  throne.  To  extinguish 
the  flames  of  war  is  more  worthy  of  a  king,  as  it  is  more 
diflBcult,  than  to  kindle  them.  If  this  bravery  of  peace 
be  already  secured,  whereby  alone  a  monarch  can  dis- 
tinguish himself  in  history — then  that  of  war,  if  neces- 
sary, becomes  easy,  and  every  wound  glorious.  Hence, 
the  great  men  of  antiquity  are  rather  distinguished  by 
their  character  than  by  their  deeds,  rather  by  the  trophies 
of  peace  than  those  of  war :  the  plough-heroes  of  battle- 
fields by  an  intensity  of  love,  which,  as  in  Phocion, 
sowed  the  steep  clifts  which  bound  the  mighty  ocean 
with  balmy  spice  plants ;  which  in  Cato  the  younger 
loved  and  bewailed  his  brother  with  all  a  woman's  tender- 
ness, and  caused  Epaminondas  to  remember  the  duties  of 
a  host  even  on  the  scaffold ;  which  made  Brutus  a  tender 


302:  JEAN  PAUL  FKIEDEICH  KICHTER.        [fEAG.  V. 

husband,   Alexander  a   trustful   friend,  and  Gustavus  a 
Christian. 

It  seems  to  me  that  a  young  prince  should  view  the 
future,  which  he  helps  to  form,  from  this  side  and  through 
this  opening  in  history ;  in  this  manner  he  must  learn 
to  subject  the  inferior  to  the  nobler  kind  of  courage. 
Certainly  a  king  who  avoided  war  from  cowardice  would 
be  more  dangerous — especially  in  the  present  position  of 
Germany — than  one  who  sought  it  from  fool-hardiness; 
and,  moreover,  he  would  be  less  ea-ily  cured.  The  sceptre 
)  esembles  Saturn's  scythe,  which  is  at  once  the  emblem  of 
harvest  time  and  of  death. 

The  thing  that  grieves  me  when  I  consider  the  excel- 
lence of  the  education  you,  dear  Adelhard,  impart,  is  that  it 
will  be  of  little  or  no  use,  unless  you  are  ennobled  or  unless 
the  prince  might  remain  at  home.  1  mean  this  ;  I  cannot 
but  lament  that  he  must  grasp  the  pilgrim's  staff  before 
the  sceptre,  and  must  pass  through  the  three  kingdoms  ot 
nature,  or  three  courts  of  the  grand  tour,  Italy,  England 
and  France,  in  order  to  return  different  from  what  he 
started !  Enough  cannot  be  said  in  favour  of  travel,  but 
not  of  early  travel.  Let  the  man,  not  the  boy,  travel; 
let  his  tiavelling-cap  be  the  crown.  If  he  go  uncrowned, 
sent  as  a  travelling  fortune  to  the  fair  of  Paris,  we  know 
— by  the  example  of  his  noble  companions  — what,  not  to 
speak  of  ruined  health,  he  will  bring  back  ;  namely,  a 
mind  full  of  contempt  for  his  little  inland  patrimony,  full 
of  plans  for  miniature  imitations,  and  of  acquired  notions 
whose  importation  the  Prussian  Lycurgusand  the  Spartan 
Frederick  the  Second  prevented,  the  one  into  the  nobility, 
the  other  into  the  people,  by  forbidding  travelling.  If 
we  wish,  by  imitation,  to  give  the  dominion  over  our 
domestic  affairs  to  foreign  countries,  which  by  treaties  of 
peace^-those  of  Westphalia  and  Luneville,  for  instance  — 
have  already  quite  sufficiently  ruled  and  changed  the 
constitution  of  the  Gemtanic  empire,  I  really  think  we 
burden  ourselves  with  too  great  a  weight  of  gratitude, 
especially  when  we  consider  the  rareness  of  the  oppor- 
tunities for  jequital.  If  foreign  travel  is  indispensable 
to  mental  growth  why  do  we  see  so  few  Daupldns,  so 
few  Princes  of  Wales,  of  Asturia,  or  of  Brazil,  in  our 


LEVANA.  303 

hotels  ?  If  the  coat  of  worldly  varnish  given  by  strangers 
cannot  be  done  without,  fortunately  his  court  will  be  so 
fiequently  visited  by  so  luany  who  will  gladly  linger 
there  a  long  time  that  he  may  easily  remain  at  home. 
For  the  same  reason,  among  the  artisans  of  Berlin, 
Konigsberg  and  other  large  towns,  the  sons  of  master 
w.-rkmen  are  not  required  to  travel  like  other  journeymen. 

Buttheie  is  one  country  which  an  heir-apparent  may 
minutely  survev  in  his  travels — it  is  his  own  ;  and  tlie 
deeper  he  penetrates  into  the  lower  classes  the  mure 
productive  of  benefit  will  his  journey  be.  Like  an  ^neas, 
or  a  Dante,  he  will  return  a  wiser  man  out  of  this  l.»wer 
world  into  the  upper  regions  of  the  throne.  A  prince 
cannot  picture  to  himself  hunger  as  any  thing  other  than 
a  rare  gift  of  God  and  of  the  stomach ;  or  labour,  than  as 
a  bawking-match  to  procure  it ;  or  the  people,  whii  h 
experiences  enough  of  both,  as  any  thing  different  from 
the  pampered  crowd  of  his  court  servants.  If  in  Corea 
the  people  must  shut  their  doors  and  windows  when  the 
king  is  passing  by,  we  may  be  suie  that  he  will  also  else 
his  from  the  eyes  of  his  people :  and  so  one  invisibility 
produces  the  other. 

If  he  be  crowned  and  married,  and  about  as  old  or  even 
older  than  Joseph  II.,  or  Peter  the  Great,  or  Popes  on 
their  travels,  or  the  ancient  Komans,  whose  proconsulships 
were  also  journeys,  he  will  receive  greater  advantage 
fiom  his  travels  than  he  would  even  as  his  own  am- 
bassador ;  for  he  will  see  every  thing  more  accuiately, 
more  quickly,  and  be  less  taxed  for  doing  so.  Boling- 
bioke  tells  us  that  if  at  forty  we  lead  again  some  of  our 
childhood's  books  we  shall  find  every  thing  new  :  even 
80,  if  at  the  same  age  we  revisit  the  land  of  our  youth,  we 
shall  find  a  new  world  previously  overlooked.  A  young 
prince,  perhaps,  brings  home  with  him  out  of  some  foreign 
country  a  faded  garland,  as  a  memento  of  rare  flowers  of 
happiness ;  a  prince  of  mature  age  brings  also  the  seeds 
of  those  flowers.  When  the  warm  hearted,  manly,  true 
German  duke  of  Meiningen  travelled,  the  year  before  hif> 
death,  to  one  of  the  southern  cities  of  Germany,  he  did 
not  visit  courts,  balls  princes  and  women  :  but  machines, 
manufactories,   soup-kitchens,   mines,   artists   and    thei/ 


304:  JEAN   PAUL  FRIEDRICH  EICHTER.        [FRAG.  V. 

works,  financiers  and  their  tables — ah!  why  was  he 
doomed  so  shortly  afterwards  to  make  the  longest  journey 
to  the  mo-t  distant  country?  A  noble  prince  who  love-* 
his  people  can  never  tread  that  path  too  late.  But,  if 
your  Friedanot  must  go  on  his  travels  before  he  ascends 
the  throne,  I  would  wish  you  to  be  ennobled  and  to 
accompany  him.  Every  i  oyal  tutor  should  receive  nobility 
from  his  connection  with  a  prince,  just  as  iron  becomes 
magnetic  by  contact  with  a  magnet,  in  order  'hat  he  may 
afterwards  be  employed  at  the  dinner  or  card-table,  when, 
otherwise,  his  place  must  be  occupied  by  some  one  whose 
rank  admits  him  to  the  royal  table.  How  happy  is  a 
princeiss  whose  Orbilia  and  La  plus  Bonne  is,  from  the 
commencement,  of  such  high  rank  that  she  may  ever 
remain  near  her !  "  Turba  medicorum  perdidit  Caesarem : "  * 
this  epitaph  on  Adrian  is  also  true  of  the  multitude  of 
**  soul  curers.'* 

Many  of  your  regulations  for  princes  may  be  readily 
guessed,  because  they  must  also  have  a  place  in  the  educa- 
tion of  eveiy  child ;  only  that  qualities  which  the  latter 
must  use  as  small  coin  in  every-day  life,  are  required 
from  princes  as  gold  for  the  mint  and  for  the  adornment 
of  the  palace.  In  the  first  place  I  rank  keeping  his  word. 
Princes  rarely  break  their  word,  except  to  whole  countries ; 
their  own  and  foreign  lands.  The  word  given  to  one 
man,  themselves  perhaps  excepted,  they  always  keep, 
Chamfort  remarks  that,  up  to  the  ministry  of  the  Cardinal 
de  Lomeuie,  tifty-six  public  breaches  of  faith  were  reckoned 
in  Henry  IV.  These  may  readily  be  explained  by  the 
rarefying  power  of  space,  which,  far  more  than  time, 
immediately  decomposes  the  strongest  powers;  as,  for 
instance,  electricity,  attraction,  philanthropy,  freedom,  and 
a  promise.  Distance,  for  instance,  inconceivably  diminishes 
British  freedom  even  in  Ii  eland,  as  it  fonuerly  did  in  North 
America  ;  but  at  sea  and  in  the  cohmies,  it  is,  by  distance, 
rarefied  to  such  a  degree  that  only  the  quick  eye  of  a 
captain  or  a  nabob  can  distinguish  it  from  absolute 
slavery.  In  the  same  way  a  promise  is  so  weakened  by 
distance  that   even  a  peace   concluded   a  centary  or  so 

*  ♦'  The  multitude  of  doctors  killed  Cfesar." 


tJHAP.  I.]  LEVANA.  305 

6efore,  by  the  naval  powers  of  Europe,  could  not  avert 
war  from  India.  Physics,  as  already  said,  show  the  cause 
of  this  phenomenon.  This  fact,  perhaps,  renders  a  lecture- 
room  and  teacher  for  speaking  truth  more  necessary  to 
an  heir-apparent.  Indeed,  this  speech  is  quite  as  impor- 
tant as  the  Lusatian  or  Italian,  which,  according  to  the 
golden  bull,*  every  fniure  elector,  king  of  Bohemia,  and 
pfalz-graf  of  the  Ehine,  had  to  learn  in  his  seventh  year ; 
or  even  as  the  French,  though  no  bull  has  declared  that 
essential. 

Royal  truthfulness  towards  his  own  and  other  nations 
is  not  only,  as  others  have  said,  a  monarch's  highest 
policy,  but  also,  and  for  that  very  reason,  the  most  diffi- 
cult. Upright  minds  are  like  straight  roads,  which  seem 
to  the  eye  scarce  half  so  long  as  those  which  wind  artfully 
about ;  but  their  true  length  is  found  by  a  nearer  exa- 
mination. Only  a  prince  who  cherishes  noble  and  well 
considered  desires  will  choose  to  reveal  them  ;  as  it  is  only 
cut  diamonds  of  the  purest  water  which  can  be  set  so  that 
the  light  may  shine  through. 

Under  all  treaties  of  war  and  peace  there  lies  a  higher 
bond  of  union  than  power — because  without  it  they  could 
not  even  be  formed — it  is  reliance  on  a  given  word,  on 
the  power  of  character,  not  on  land  and  sea  forces.  But 
in  history,  which  else  accurately  lays  before  us  from 
month  to  month  the  cost  of  the  new  triumphal  arches  for 
fresh  victors,  there  is  nothing  more  rare  than  an  honour- 
able niche  devoted  to  a  king  who  speaks  truly  for  the 
present,  and  prophesies  truly  for  the  future.  lioyal  truth- 
fulness presupposes  force  of  character,  resolute  courage, 
and  just  strength  of  will.  Finally,  where  this  oak  forest 
stands  and  grows  around  a  throne,  there  is  the  ancient 
German  sanctuary ;  the  throne  within  its  shadow  works 
miracles,  and  the  people  round  its  base  pray  to  heaven  for 
protection.  You  and  I  hear  such  a  forest  rustling  so  near 
our  study  that  we  could  count  its  leaves. 

Baireuth,  January  1806. 
I  have  again  unpacked  my  goods  because  peace  con  • 
tinues ;  sc  that  our  meeting,  as  well  as  the  review  and 

*  Aur.  BulL  0.  30.  §  2. 
I.  t 


306  JEAN   PAUL   FKIEDRICH   KICHTER.         [fEAG.  V. 

ratification  of  my  predictions,  must  be  postponed  to  a 
more  favourable  season.  In  conclusion,  and  in  jest,  I 
append  a  few  aphorisms  on  education  suitable  for  insertion 
in  albums,  which  I  prepare  from  time  to  time  for  the 
various  royal  and  noble  tutors  who  visit  my  study,  so  as 
to  have  a  few  useful  impromptu  thoughts  ready  to  be 
written  down  when  they  hand  me  their  albums.  The 
following  thoughts  have  not  yet  been  inserted  in  such 
books : — 

To  form  a  brave  man,  educate  boldly !  Brave  painters 
alone,  says  Lavater,  can  hit  a  brave  face. 

Not  without  reason  do  the  rarest  flowers  borrow  their 
names  from  princes.  Power  cannot  have  too  gentle  an 
expression.  The  look  of  a  king  is  itself  a  deed.  Conse- 
quently  a  king  can  choose  whether  he  will  all  day  kill 

or  make  alive. The  sceptre   should   not  be  a  rod  of 

authority ;  but,  like  a  magnetic  needle,  should  assume  the 

form  of  a  lily. It  is  easier,  like  the  tragic  Crebillon, 

to  obtain  the  surname  of  the  terrible,  than,  like  Virgil,  to 

merit  the  epithet  of  the  maidenly. A  flute  lay  side 

by  side  in  his  tent  with  Frederick  the  Great's  baton 
of  command.  Let  every  prince  regard  this  as  an 
allegory.* 

He  who  mistrusts  humanity  is  quite  as  often  deceived 
as  he  who  trusts  men.  The  wicked  and  despotic  favourite 
always  advises  a  king  to  rule  for  himself,  not  to  let 
others  govern  for  him;  to  see  and  hear  for  himself  (at 
least  to  see  and  hear  the  favourite),  and  not  to  be  a  mere 
repeater  on  which  an  external  hammer  strikes  the  time, 
but  to  be  a  church  bell,  which  sounds  with  its  own 
tongue,  and  which  the  favourite  rings  whether  for  funerals 
or  weddings. 

Tutor !  Have  at  heart  no  work  of  your  pupil  so  much 
as  love  of  work :  it  is  this  he  should  learn  by  that.  And, 
unless  he  learn  to  be  a  lover  of  work,  he  will  in  after 


*  Since  these  four  thoughts  only  express  a  fifth,  which  is  the  same 
they  will  be  inserted  in  four  different  albums. 


CHAP.  I.]  LEVANA.  30? 

years  (as  Vopiscus  tells  us  the  Emperor  Carimis  did)  keep 
a  servant  to  write  his  signature ;  or,  if  he  write  it  himself, 
he  will  do  so  like  that  self-made  slave  of  his  own  servants, 
Philip  the  Fifth  of  Spain. 

On  the  throne  everything,  even  time— as  in  Basle — is 
wanted  to  be  an  hour  earlier  than  it  really  is ;  thought, 
consequently,  long  before  reflection.  Eoyal  impromptus, 
as  the  winged  seeds  of  action,  are  always  dangerous ;  they 
often  make  long  diets  and  long  judgment-days  necessary, 
and  have  to  count  forced  imposts  instead  of  freely  granted 
tributes.  How  many  subjects  has  a  hon  mot  killed !  How 
many  suggestions  of  the  wicked  one  have  been  acted  on 
by  haste !  He  who  needs  proofs  has  but  to  inquire  of  the 
chief  justice  in  history.  What  more  excellent  object,  I 
ask,  can  a  teacher  set.  before  himself  than  to  accustom  his 
pupil  never  to  say  an  important  yes  or  no,  never  to  express 
a  like  or  a  dislike,  without  taking  an  hour's  respite  to 
consider  the  question,  request,  or  sin  ?  With  such  a  letter 
of  grace  (moratorium)  he  might  write  himself  a  brevet  of 
infallibility.  But  why  speak  I  of  princes  ?  Every  one  is 
in  this  position ;  only  that  the  high  rank  of  monarchs 
fearfully  increases  the  rolling,  avalanche-like,  consequences 
of  every  sound.  And  it  is  precisely  in  the  higher  ranks 
that  men  perversely  attend  more  to  deeds  expressed  in 
words — hon  mots,  impromptus,  &c.,  than  to  words  expressed 
in  deeds — decretals,  resolutions,  &c. ;  and  take  time  to 
consider  a  jest,  though  not  a  serious  matter.  Let  the 
teacher  invert  this  inversion.  .  .  .  Dear  Adelhard,  I  am 
myself  this  moment  guilty  of  improvising ;  so  difficult  is 
it  to  be  avoided.  For  this  last  article  for  the  album  I 
really  made  for  the  letter ;  the  former  would  require  it  to 
be  much  more  compressed.  So  powerful  is  the  influence 
of  the  present  moment ;  one  confounds  letter,  album,  and 
book  all  together.  Fare  you  well,  dear  Adelhard ;  and,  in 
this  respect,  fare  better  than  I. 

.  I  Wished  to  add  this  apophthegm  also:  "Above  all 
things  inspire  a  prince  with  the  taste  for  reading — not 
merely  the  inscriptions  on  triumphal  arches  and  in  illu- 
minations— but  books  and  acts ;"  but,  if  I  am  not  mistaken, 
it  i.s  already  written  in  your  album.    Cabinet  secrets,  like 

X  2 


308  JEAN   PAUL    FRIEDRICH  RICHTER.         [FRAG.  T. 

the  light  of  the  fixed  stars,  reach  us  for  the  first  time 
many  years  after  their  emanation  ;  but  the  secrets  of  the 
stud}'',  like  the  light  of  the  planets,  never  reach  so  far  as 
the  fixed  stars.  Yours, 

J.  P.  F.  E. 

Postscript. — As  there  was  no  post,  this  letter  to  yoTi, 
excellent  prince's  tutor,  has  lain  in  my  desk  during  the 
sale  of  the  whole  first  edition  of  Levana ;  it  was  printed, 
but  not  despatched :  luckily,  while  preparing  the  second, 
a  young  tutor,  dismissed  from  a  certain  conrt,  visited  me 
and  promised  to  deliver  you  my  letter.  For  the  rest  he 
curses  the  whole  matter  for  hours  every  day,  and  declares 
he  would  almost  rather  be  a  prince  than  a  prince's  tutor ; 
for  the  one  only  spoils  himself,  whereas  the  tutor  spoils 
others  too.  He  openlj^  derides  my  whole  letter  to  you,  as 
a  mere  waste  of  paper  and  ink,  and  saj^s  I  have  only  for- 
gotten the  principal  thing,  the  so-called  governor  both  of 
prince  and  tutor.  He  asked  me  to  teach  him  "  what  use 
it  was  to  be  the  very  best  of  tutors,  as  a  man  must  become 
the  very  worst  if  the  prince's  governor  so  choose ;  who  is 
regarded  as  the  upper-house  to  the  tutor's  lower-house,  or 
college  rector  to  his  inferior  school."  But,  instead  of 
waiting  my  instructions,  he  continued  angrily :  "  The 
governors,  who  never  permitted  him  even  to  be  vice- 
governor  to  the  prince,  were  as  old  in  rank  as  in  age, 
and  consequently  took  precedence  in  every  thing  of  him, 
who  was  only  perfectly  capable  of  all  his  duties ;  so  that 
the  young  prince  regarded  him  merely  as  a  subordinate, 
as  a  kind  of  school-fox  whose  master  Eeynard  was  the 
governor.  The  word  of  a  man  who  sat  at  the  same  dinner 
table  with  the  prince  was  more  esteemed  by  him  and  by 
the  whole  court,  than  the  sermons  of  one  who  might  only 
sit  near  him  at  the  study  table." 

I  replied,  that  on  this  matter  I  would  take  the  part  of 
the  men  of  the  world.  The  schoolman  has  about  as  much 
relation  to  the  nobleman  as  the  Abbot  Fowler,  for  instance, 
has  to  a  fowl.  As,  according  to  Kant's  observations,  we 
soon  grow  weary  of  the  most  excellent  human  singing, 
but  never  of  the  perpetual  singing  of  birds,  because  it  is 
subject  to  no  rule,  and  its  variations  are  quite  undeter- 


CHAP.   I.]  LEVANA.  309 

mined ;  so,  the  scholar,  by  the  monotonous  unity  of  his 
thoughts  and  discourses,  always  aiming  at  one  end,  soon 
drives  to  sleep ;  whereas  the  courtier,  flitting  from  one 
subject  to  another,  engages  the  attention,  just  because 
he  says  nothing  very  definite,  and  because  variety  of 
mere  nothings  gives  more  pleasure  than  uniformity  of 
something. 

"  A  governor,"'  continued  he,  "  who  only  thinks  ot 
king,  court  and  nobility,  and  orders  the  prince  to  be 
educated  only  for  these,  will  bar  with  the  collars  of  his 
multitudinous  orders  all  the  havens  into  which  a  tutor 
would  C(jnduct  his  pupil  to  the  sound  of  silver  flutes. 
He  will  throw  in  his  teeth  the  accurate  '  revision '  of  his 
plan  of  education  (none  so  good  as  that  which  is  printed) ; 
and,  if  the  tutored  tutor  think  diflerently,  he  has  only 
the  choice  of  being  frightened,  or  being  angry." 

''  Truly,  not  bad !  "  said  I,  '*  for  by  this  means  the 
tutor  will  be  educated  to  be  tender  and  better  than  he 
can  educate  the  prince.  In  the  same  way,  cooks  make 
poultry  tender  and  tasty  by  putting  them  into  a  pond,  oi- 
a  turkey  by  throwing  it  from  a  considerable  height  before 
killing  it — this  has  the  effect  of  fright  on  them  ;  or  they 
irritate  them  by  whistling  and  shaking  red  cloths  at  them 
— which  has  the  effect  of  rage." 

"  We  must  then  experience,"  concluded  the  tutor, 
**  what  is  the  consequence  if  the  governor  can  use  the 
sceptre  as  a  good  school  cane  to  the  citizen-teacher ; 
I  do  not  mean  what  the  governor  becomes  (for  he  goes 
away  like  myself),  but  what  the  innocent  prince  becomes, 
in  whom,  placed  as  a  young  master  between  a  flattering 
upper  servant  and  a  kneeling  slave,  no  manly  character 
can  possibly  be  developed, — no  bones  grow." 

*'  But,''  said  I,  "  I  do  not  see  the  evil  of  that.  I  myself 
know  many  people  of  rank  whose  whole  inner  man  does 
not  contain  one  whole  bone,  but  who  precisely  resemble 
people  struck  by  a  thunder-bolt,  in  whom  the  lightning 
generally  only  breaks  the  bones,  without  in  the  smallest 
degree  burning  or  injuring  the  external  form.  And  so  it 
is,  my  friend  !  " 

As,  however,  we  could  neither  of  us  quite  agree, 
and  I  could  not  become  perfectly  serious,  I  think  I  nave 


310  JEAN  PAUL  FKIEDKICH  EICHTER.         [FRAG.  V, 

adopted  a  very  sensible  plan  in  sending  him  to  yon  with 
this  postscript,  so  that  you  may  either  alter  or  ccmfirm 
his  opinion.  You  must  certainly  know  whether  there  is 
any  difference  among  governors,  and  whether  the  course 
of  the  little  prince  may  not  occasionally  describe  an 
accurate  ellipse  round  the  two  foci.  Heaven  grant  that, 
and  many  other  things  too ! 


(    311    ) 


SIXTH  FRAGMENT. 

ON   THE  MORAL   EDUCATION   OF   BOYS. 

Chap.  I.  Moral  Strength, — Physical  Strength. — Games  of  Hurting.— 
Injurionsness  of  Fear  and  of  Fright. — Love  of  Life. — Insufficiency 
of  the  mere  Passions. — Necessity  of  a  youthful  Ideal,  §  101 — 108. 
Chap.  II.  Truthfulness,  Charades,  and  Children's  Plays,  §  109—113. 
Chap.  III.  Education  of  the  Afifections. — Means  of  arousing  them.  — 
Love  of  Animals,  §  114 — 119.  Chap.  IV.  Supplemental  Appendix 
on  Moral  Education. — Various  Consolatory  Kules. — Stories  of 
Parents  for  their  own  Children. — Children's  Journeys. — Danger  of 
a  premature  Feeling  of  Shame,  and  on  the  Modesty  of  Children, 
§  120—127. 


CHAPTER  I. 

§  101. 

Honour,  honesty,  steadfast  will,  truthfulness,  indifference 
towards  threatening  wounds  and  endurance  of  those 
inflicted,  openness,  self-respect,  just  self-appreciation, 
contempt  for  the  opinion  of  the  world,  justice  and  per- 
severance— all  these  and  similar  words  indicate  only  one 
half  of  the  moral  nature,  viz.  moral  strength  and  elevation 
of  character.  The  other  half  embraces  all  our  connections 
with  others ;  the  realm  of  love,  gentleness,  benevolence 
— in  short,  what  may  be  called  moral  beauty. 

If  the  one  seem  to  turn  inwards,  towards  itself,  the 
other  outwards  towards  others  ;  the  one  to  be  a  repelling, 
the  other  an  attracting  pole ;  if  the  one  regard  an  idea  as 
holy,  and  the  other  rather  esteem  life  to  be  so,  yet  boih 
are  equally  elevated  above  self,  which  is  only  the  object 
of  the  animal  propen^itie8,  and  of  the  sins  against  the 
twin  stars  of  the  heart ;   for  honour,  as  well  as  love, 


312  JEAN   PAUL  FEIEDRICH   EICHTER.         [fRAG.  VI. 

sacrifices  selfishness.  Moreover  love  does  not  seek  and 
contemplate  in  another  what  it  avoids  in  itself ;  but  it 
beholds  and  embraces  therein  the  image  of  the  divinity. 
We  find  God  twice ;  once  within,  once  without  ns ; 
within  US  as  an  eye,  without  us  as  light.  Yet  is  it  every- 
where the  same  ethereal  fire,  indifferent  whether  it  spring 
up  from  without  or  within ;  and,  indeed,  the  one  pre- 
supposes the  other,  and  consequently  a  third  which 
produces  and  unites  both.  Call  it  the  Holy.  In  the 
spiiitual  world  there  is  properly  no  out  and  no  in.  Love 
is  naturally  the  companion  of  true  moral  strength,  as 
we  ever  find  sweet  fruits  on  strong  branches ;  weakness 
trembles  like  a  Vesuvius  only  to  destroy.  Even  so,  pure 
love  can  not  merely  do  all,  but  is  all. 

§  102. 

But  here  we  are  only  concerned  with  the  difference  of 
appearances,  not  with  their  foundations.  The  former 
show  us  man  born  and  fitted  out  more  for  moral  strength, 
or  honour,  and  woman  for  moral  beauty,  or  love.  From 
our  farmer  position,  "  that  woman  does  not  divide  and 
contemplate  herself  as  man  does,"  we  might  deduce  the 
division  of  the  two  moral  poles,  with  varying  balance 
between  both  sexes,  ascribing  love  to  the  female  and 
strength  to  the  male,  because  the  former  is  more  occupied 
with  what  is  external  to  herself,  but  the  latter  in  examin- 
ing what  passes  within  himself.  But  why  reason  about 
facts  ?  This  moral  difference  between  the  sexes  is  repeated, 
although  in  miniature,  in  every  individual ;  but  more  of 
this  hereafter.  We  will  now  view  the  educational  means 
of  adapting  the  boy  to  his  destination  by  developing 
moral  strength  of  character. 

§  103. 

One  age  requires  men  in  order  to  exisc,  another  in 
order  to  subsist ;  ours  needs  both ;  and  yet  education 
dreads  nothing  more  than  making  boys  manly,  and, 
where  possible,  strives  to  unman  them.  Nurseries  and 
schoolrooms   are  like  altars   in  the   temples  which   the 


CHAP.  I.]  LEV  ANA.  313 

Eomans  dedicated  to  Pavor  and  Pallor  (pale  fear).  As 
though  the  world  were  now  too  full  of  courage,  teachers 
ordinarily  engraft  fear  by  punishments  and  actions,  but 
only  recommend  courage  by  words.  Not  undertaking, 
but  letting  alone,  receives  the  victor's  crown. 

In  Nestor's  order  of  battle*  the  timid  occupied  the 
middle  ranks ;  it  is  so  also  in  our  states ;  and  more 
physical  courage  is  found  in  the  highest  and  lowest  ranks 
than  the  scholar  or  the  schoolmaster  usually  possesses. 
Hence  the  latter  expects  his  boys  to  resemble  the  Iroquois, 
who  think  a  hare  is  a  deity ;  and  even  endeavours  to  raise 
tlieiu  to  a  place  among  these  gods.  The  ancients,  in  their 
veneration  for  strength,  forgot  benevolence ;  we  err  in 
the  contrary  direction.  The  effeminate  teaching-class 
may,  however,  be  excused  by  its  disappointment ;  for  the 
coJirage  of  children,  owing  to  their  deficiency  in  counter- 
balancing prudence,  readily  turns  to  rashness  and  attacks 
teacher  and  fate.  But  let  us  remember  that  years  do 
indeed  increase  light  but  not  strength,  and  that  it  is 
easier  to  provide  a  pilgrim  on  life's  journey  with  a  guide, 
than  to  restore  to  him,  like  a  statue,  the  legs  and  wings 
which  have  been  removed  lest  he  should  run  or  fly  away. 
We  will,  like  warriors,  begin  with  common  courage,  and 
l)roceed  upwards  to  honour. 

§  104. 

The  body  is  the  coat  of  mail  and  breastplate  of  the  soul ; 
so  let  this  in  the  first  place  be  hardened  into  steel  by  heat 
and  cold.  Let  every  father  provide,  as  well  as  he  can,  a 
little  gymnastic  scliool  round  his  house ;  the  very  street 
in  which  the  boy  plays,  runs,  falls,  climbs,  and  bids 
defiance,  is  something.  Wounds  got  in  the  street  a»e 
sooner  healed  and  more  wholesome  than  wounds  got  at 
school,  and  they  teach  better  how  to  bear  pain.  Out 
of  the  wild  English  youth  there  grows  a  thoughtful 
member  of  Parliament ;  as  out  of  the  early  Roman  robbers 
a  virtuous  self-sacrificing  senate  arose.  The  RDmans  bled 
the  rashly  brave ;  the  schoolmaster's  rod  also  lets  blood ; 

•  Horn.  U.  iv.  297. 


t'^14  JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDEICH  RICHTER.         TfRAO.  VI. 

and  the  starving  method,  solitary  confinement  (fee,  pales 
the  remainder.  Ao  power  should  ever  be  weakened, — one 
cannot  repeat  this  too  often — but  only  its  counterbalancing 
power  strengthened  :  in  squirrels  the  upper  row  of  teeth 
often  grows  painfully  long,  but  only  when  the  lower  one 
is  lost.  A  rash  twelve-year-old  Dreadnought  might  soon 
enough  be  made  thoughtful;  you  need  but  read  through 
with  him  some  anatomical  or  surgical  book,  but  this 
remedy,  like  arsenic,  is  only  to  be  used  in  the  most 
desperate  cases  and  in  the  smallest  possible  doses.  Bodily 
weakness  makes  mental  weakness ;  and  mental  weakness 
leaves  deeper,  aye,  perpetual,  traces  behind  it :  the  broken 
arm  is  much  sooner  cured  than  the  broken  heart  of  a  child. 
And,  lastly,  children  are  spoiled  in  two  different  ways  in  the 
young  sick-room  ;  the  healthy  by  severity,  the  sick  by  weak 
indulgence.  Now  the  sick  would  be  much  better  served 
by  the  mental  excitement  of  pictures,  little  games  on  the 
pillow  and  tales,  than  by  physical  indulgences.  1  f  health 
be  the  first  step  to  courage,  bodil}^  exercise  is  the  second 
against  pain.  I'his  in  modern  times  is  not  only  abandoned, 
but  actually  contradicted ;  and  with  us  the  boy  is  fastened 
up,  not  that  he  may  learn  but  that  he  may  not  learn  to 
bear  it,  and  that  he  may  at  once  begin  to  confess.  Detest- 
able method ! 

How  can  the  torture-system  of  the  punishing  police  so 
far  confuse  your  ideas  with  regard  to  education,  that  you 
do  not  value  the  power  of  mental  strength  as  opposed  to 
physical  strength,  but  consider  firmness  a  repetition  of  the 
denounced  fault?  This  is  as  egregious  a  mistake  as 
Locke's  advice  to  disgust  children  with  card-playing  by 
compelling  them  to  practise  it;  for  this  official  change, 
produced  by  disgust  at  the  compulsory  repetition  of  the 
game,  would  be  a  worse  disease  than  that  it  cured.  Must 
we  not,  in  this  place,  severely  attack  another  error  in 
education — a  most  repulsive  one,  though  concealed  by  the 
showy  paint  of  custom — it  is  that  of  harshly  punishing 
children  before  other  children,  in  order  to  make  them 
a  so-called  example?  For  either  the  child,  as  a  cold 
observer,  shares  the  sentiments  of  the  passionate  punisher 
and  feels  no  compassion  for  the  torture-wrung  cries  of  his 
equal,  no  disgust  at  the  repulsive  sight  of  the  cruelly  used 


CHAP.  I.J  LEVANA.  315 

victory  of  the  strong  over  the  weak, — and  then,  indeed,  I 
know  not  what  more  his  heart  can  lose, — or  else  the  child 
experiences  all  the  pain  which  the  judgment-seat  raised  in 
the  nursery  inflicts,  and  so,  as  is  the  case  with  grown-up 
people  at  executions,  thinks  the  punishment  greater  than 
the  fault, — and  then  any  advantage  to  be  derived  from  the 
painful  sight  is  lost;  or,  lastly,  he  at  once  pities  and 
comprehends  the  punishment,  and  feels  the  greatest  dread 
of  such  terrible  pain, — and  then  you  certainly  do  secure 
obedience,  but  you  increase  fear.  In  short,  do  not  inflict 
severe  punishments  in  the  presence  of  children  ;  be  satis6ed 
that  their  invisibility,  coupled  with  what  is  related  of 
them,  will  secure  the  advantages  without  the  disadvan- 
tages. 

It  would  be  much  more  desirable  to  establish  exercises 
in  bearing  pain,  schools  of  the  cross  in  a  stoic  sense  ;  and 
indeed  boys  themselves  have  games  of  a  similai-  nature. 
Formerly  in  Mexico  one  child  bound  his  arm  to  that  ot 
another  child,  and  placed  a  live  coal  between  ;  both  con- 
tended who  should  longest  bear  the  burning  pain.  In 
Montaigne's  childhood  the  nobility  consideied  fencing- 
schools  mean  because,  by  their  aid,  victory  no  longer  de- 
pended solely  on  courage.  The  ancient  Danes  did  not 
even  wink  the  eye  at  wounds  in  the  face.*  What  was 
formerly  attained  by  whole  nations  and,  consequently, 
was  not  the  gift  of  birth  but  of  education,  — this  surely 
must  be  sufficiently  easy  to  repeat  in  individuals. 

Never  make  lamentation  over  a  child's  hurt,  but  pass  it 
off  with  a  joke.  If  a  liitle  child  runs  to  you  to  show  its 
hurt,  let  him  wait  a  little  before  he  engages  your  eye  or 
ear,  and  in  the  mean  time  say  quietly  to  him,  "  I  must 
first  finish  my  writing,"  or  "  knit  ofl"  this  needle."  Or  tell 
him  to  go  and  fetch  you  something ;  nothing  draws  the 
thorn  from  the  wound  so  soon  as  action-  soldiers  do  not 
feel  their  wounds  in  the  heat  of  battle.  *'  My  nose  is 
bleeding,"  says  the  youngest  child  in  a  doleful  tone. 
"  Oh  I  look  at  the  pretty  red  blood,  how  it  drops  ;  where 
does  it  come  from  ?  There  was  none  in  your  little  nose 
just  now,"  you  say ;  and  the  pain  is  forgotten  in  the  inquiry 

*  Bibliothbque  uniTcrselle,  xy.  385 


316  JEAN  PAUL  FKIEDEICH  KICHTEE.         [fRAG.  VI. 

■ — what  is  internal  in  what  is  external.  Further  :  protect 
a  child's  ear  even  more  carefully  than  his  eye.  The  ear  is 
especially  the  sense  of  fear;  hence  those  animals  which 
hear  quickly  are  timid.  As  harmonj^  holds  the  heart  en- 
tranced in  delight,  so  does  the  scream  of  fear  in  horror. 
An  inexplicable  sound  is  the  true  night  for  fear.  The  eye 
becomes  at  last  reconciled  to  every  monstrous  form,  if  it 
only  remain  sufficiently  long  before  it ;  but  the  abyss  of 
sound  does  not  become  clearer,  but  more  dreadful,  by 
continuance.  A  little  girl,  to  whom  the  colour  of  the 
chimney-sweeper  had  only  seemed  curious,  received  the 
first  fright  in  her  life  from  hearing  the  uninterrupted 
noise  of  his  sweeping.  Give  therefore  to  every  strange 
noise,  such  as  that  of  the  wind,  some  merry  name.  Our 
age  is  the  first  that  has  made  it  a  duty  to  devise 
rules  against  that  fear  which  disarms  and  fetters  man- 
kind. In  every  child  there  lies,  side  by  side  with  the 
jomantic  hope  of  an  infinite  Heaven,  the  equally  romantic 
dread  of  an  infinite  Orcus.  But  you  hold  this  Orcus 
dreadfully  open  before  the  child  if  you  give  this  ideal  fear 
an  object  by  naming  such  a  thing.  The  author  committed 
this  error  by  saying  to  his  children,  in  order  to  prevent 
their  hating  and  fearing  soldiers  or  other  people,  '*  Only 
bad  men  are  to  be  feared."  Hereby  their  fear,  previously 
scattered  over  various  visible  objects,  was  concentrated  in 
the  unchanging  focus  of  a  single  invisible  object;  and 
they  carried  this  fancied  bug-bear  with  them  everywhere, 
and  saw  it  in  every  thing.  In  no  emotion  of  the  soul — 
not  even  in  love — does  fancy  push  its  creative  and  ruling 
power  so  far  as  in  fear.  Children,  else  religiously  be- 
lieving all  their  parents  say,  anxiously  desire  the  word 
which  is  to  arm  them  against  ghosts,  and  yet,  with  that 
very  dictum  on  their  lips,  succumb  to  imagination  in 
their  hearts.  Further:  children  who  have  long  since 
examined,  and  even  themselves  made,  the  object  of  their 
alarm, — a  cloak,  for  instance,  and  a  hat  hung  upon  a 
stick — will  yet  run  away  from  it  with  terror.  So  they 
fear  less  what  has  already  hurt  them  than  what  their 
parents,  either  by  looks  or  words,  have  mentioned  with 
fear ;  a  mouse,  for  instance.  Therefore,  especially  avoid 
and  guard  against  all   suddenness   of  speech, — such   as 


CHAP.  I.]  LEVANA.  317 

exclaiming  in  the  night,  "  Look ! "  or  even  "  Listen  !  " 
which  alarms  yet  more — and  of  appearance  or  action ;  for 
in  that  case  the  senses  do  not  restrain,  but  only  inflame, 
the  fancy,  and  the  reality  is  wildly  confused  by  the  ha-ty 
explanation.  Thus,  alarm  during  thunderstorms  princi- 
pally arises  from  the  rapidity  with  which  the  lightning 
momentarily  reveals  the  dark  sky  to  the  straining  sight. 
If  the  whole  firmament  remained  one  long  flash  we  should 
fear  it  less. 

Do  not  merely  spare  children  reading  any  painful 
stories,  but  also  every  verbal  description  of  any  unknown 
phj'sical  suffering ;  for  in  children  of  a  lively  imagination 
mental  fear  easily  springs  out  of  bodily  fear,  and  this — 
which  is  never  considered — even  through  dreams.  These 
gigantic  chaotic  painters  in  the  mind  form,  out  of  the 
little  terrors  of  the  daj',  those  monstrous  masks  of  the 
Furies  which  wake  and  nourish  the  fear  of  ghosts  which 
slumbers  in  every  human  being.  We  should  attend  far 
more  to  the  dreams  of  children  than  to  those  of  mature 
persons,  especially  on  account  of  this  difference, — that  in 
ours  resound  the  echoes  of  our  childhood ;  what  then  in 
theirs  ? — Who  has  not  ex|)erienced  sudden  presentiments, 
an  inexplicable  and  perfectly  unexpected  fore-taste  ot 
approaching  good  or  ill  fortune,  wafted  upon  him  like 
air  from  some  mountain  precipice?  Or  who  in  new 
countries,  cocurrences,  or  men,  has  not  sometimes  found, 
deep  within  him,  a  mirror  whereon,  from  old  time,  these 
very  things  were  darkly  pictured  and  beheld  ?  And  to 
whom,  in  subsequent  dreams  and  fevers,  has  not  the  same 
serpent  form,  the  same  mis-shapen  tortuous  monster,  con- 
tinually re-appeared,  of  which,  in  his  whole  remembered 
life,  he  had  beheld  no  archetype?  Might  not  these  shapes 
be  buried  remnants  of  old  childhood's  dreams  which  rise 
from  the  deep,  like  sea-monsters,  in  the  night? 

Be  careful  to  conceal  your  own  grief  about  others' 
necessities  or  your  own.  Nothing  is  more  infectious  than 
fear  and  courage ;  but  the  parent's  fear  is  doubled  in  the 
child ;  for  where  the  giant  trembles  the  dwarf  must  surely 
fall. 

The  father  especially  should  never  come  before  his 
children  with  a  melancholy,  penitential  face,  or  the  ap- 


318  JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDKICH   RICHTER.         [fRAG.  VI. 

pearaiice  of  mucli  suffering,  as  if  there  were  so  much  to 
I'ose  in  life  that  he  could  even  lose  himself:  at  most  let 
him  only  point  out  a  gloomy  future,  but  not  anxiety  con- 
cerning it ;  and  at  least  let  him  have  no  other  copies  of 
his  lamentations  and  "  liber  tristium "  than  one  for  his 
wife  and  friend.  Yet  the  very  opposite  of  this  is  most 
generally  the  case.  It  is  in  the  house  (as  though  every 
barricade  and  city  wall  must  make  people  cowardl}^),  in 
some  hole  in  the  shore,  that  the  externally  armed  lobster 
casts  his  shell ;  and  it  is  in  the  nest  with  its  poor  little 
ones  that  the  bold  eagle  moults,  thus  permitting  them 
only  to  see  its  domestic  cowardice,  not  its  public  courage. 
Eather  let  every  one  resemble  the  pastor  Seider,  who,  in 
reading  the  newspapers,  lamented  that  of  all  the  printed 
accounts  of  his  sufferings  nut  one  was  true. 

§  105. 

Since  indifference  to  actual  blows,  and  disregard  of 
anticipated  ones,  mutually  strengthen  each  other,*  I  hope 
I  may  continue  to  confound  them  without  reproach. 
Courage  does  not  consist  in  blindly  overlooking  danger, 
but  in  meeting  it  with  the  eyes  open.  Therefore  do  not 
attempt  to  make  boys  brave  by  saying  "  It  will  not  hurt 
you," — for  in  that  case  the  sheep  would  fight  as  bravely 
as  the  lion ; — but  by  saying  more  truly,  "  What  is  it  ? 
Only  a  hurt."  For  you  may  safely  reckon  on  a  something 
in  the  human  breast  which  no  wounds  can  reach,  on  a 
steadfast  celestial  axle  among  the  mutable  earthly  axles ; 
insomuch  as  man,  unlike  the  beasts,  has  something  more 
than  pain  to  dread. 

There  is  a  courage  manifested  against  the  future  and 
the  imagination,  and  also  a  courage  manifested  against 
the  present  and  the  imagination  :  the  one  is  opposed  to 
fear,  the  other  to  terror.  If  there  must  be  the  one  or  the 
other,  fear  is,  for  children,  preferable  to  terror,  but  not  so 
for  men !  If  fear,  as  the  Cardinal  de  Eetz  said,  enfeeble 
and  distort  the  understanding   more  than  all  the  other 

*  Not  however  exactly  as  one  might  assume ;  if  a  boy  only  have  a 
quick  fancy  he  will  fear  the  wounds  of  the  future  whilst  he  diaregarcU 
those  of  the  present 


CHAP.  I.J  LEVANA.  319 

emotions  of  the  mind,  terror  entirely  destroys  it,  and  puts 
madness  in  its  place.  Fear  may  be  imparted  so  slowly- 
and  in  so  carefully  measured  doses,  that  it  will  rather  act 
as  an  incitement  than  as  a  poison  to  thought  and  reso- 
lution. AVhereas  terror — whether  inspired  by  sight  or 
sound — is  a  flash  of  lightning  shivering  the  whole  man, 
unarming  and  slaughtering  him  at  one  stroke.  Chiarugi  * 
shows,  on  the  authority  of  Giasone,  that  children  who 
have  been  brought  up  harshly  and  kept  in  order  by  images 
of -tenor  frequently  fall  victims  to  insanity. 

One  shock  of  terror  may  produce  long-lasting  fear ;  but 
fear  cannot  give  birth  to  terror,  for  its  imagination, 
dwelling  on  the  future,  finds  even  its  present  there. 

With  the  exception  of  good  health,  there  is  no  pre- 
servative from  terror  save  acquaintance  with  its  object 
it  is  produced  only  by  what  is  new.  The  bravest  may 
be  terrified,  as  the  Romans  were  by  elephants,  or  as  the 
bravest  modem  European  might  be  by  some  strange 
gigantic  beast-like  form — dropped  out  of  Jupiter,  let  us 
suppose — whose  poisonous  qualities  and  modes  of  attack 
he  knew  not. 

Then  arm  the  young  mind  against  the  thunder-storms 
of  accident  by  a  lightning  conductor  ^rhich  you  yourself 
make.  The  present  assembly  hall  for  the  sittings  of  col- 
leges and  societies  of  learned  men  unfortunately  helps 
them  to  pass  through  their  sitting  mode  of  life  and  death 
without  becoming  remarkably  brave.  It  is  a  significant 
fact,  that  all  important  offices  are  marked  by  the  appendage 
of  a  seat, — the  Bench  of  judges  and  of  bishops,  the  Chair 
of  divinity,  the  Stool  of  prayer,  the  Seat  of  instruction, — 
and  their  reward  is  Rest  in  Abraham's  bosom,  or  on  the 
'I'hrones  of  the  twelve  apostles.  He  who  sits  when  attacked 
by  an  enemy  loses  his  courage,  as  is  shown  by  every  regi- 
ment awaiting  an  attack:  and  we  run  away  with  our 
heels,  where  alone  the  Homeric  Achilles  was  vulnerable. 
But  even  in  modern  times  the  runner  would  be  brave  if 
no  inimical  runner  pursued  him.  No  Napoleon  could  spend 
sufficient  money  in  building  golden  bridges  for  a  flying 
enemy. 

As  a  person  can  be  really  terrified  only  once  by  the 

•  See  hie  work  on  Insanity,  b.  i.  §  282. 


320  JEAN  PAUL  FEIEDRICH  EICHTER.      [fRAG.  Vt 

8ame  thipg,  I  think  it  possible  to  spatre  children  the 
reality  by  sportive  representations  of  alarming  circnm- 
stances.  For  instance :  I  go  with  my  little  nine-year-old 
Paul  to  walk  in  a  thick  wood.  Suddenly  three  blackened 
and  armed  ruffians  rush  out  and  fall  upon  uh,  because  I 
had  hired  them  for  the  adventure  with  a  small  thieves' 
premium  the  day  before.  We  two  are  only  provided  with 
sticks,  but  the  band  of  robbers  are  armed  with  swords 
and  a  pistol  without  bullets.  Here  nothing  is  of  use  but 
presence  of  mind  and  resolution.  One  is  opposed  to  three 
(for  Paul  must  be  reckoned  as  nothing,  though  I  call  upon 
him  to  fight) ;  but  because  I  turn  away  the  pistol  so  that 
it  may  miss  me,  and  strike  the  dagger  out  of  one  of  the 
thieves'  hand  with  my  stick,  and  seize  upon  it  to  attack 
the  third,  I  hope  that  the  ruffianly  troop  may  be  van- 
quished and  put  to  flight  by  one  honest  man  with  his  son's 
help.  We  pursue  the  routed  army  for  a  little  distance, 
but  80on  desist  as  many  stray  shots  are  fired ;  and  I  main- 
tain a  constant  derision  of  the  enemy's  line, — which,  like 
an  orderly  book-shelf,  only  shows  the  backs — so  that  even 
my  little  ally  can  conclude  for  himself  how  much  courage 
alone  is  superior  to  numbers,  especially  of'villains,  who, 
according  to  all  experience,  are  seldom  brave.  But  (I  add 
in  this  second  edition)  all  such  games  are  of  doubtful 
advantage,  because  of  their  falsity ;  and  only  by  repetition 
can  they  altogether  lose  the  evils  attendant  even  on  a 
fright  which  ends  in  nothing.  A  great  many  tales  of 
victorious  courage  are,  perhaps,  better  means  of  arousing 
and  strengthening  that  virtue. 

Other  "  cloak  and  dagger  pieces,"  as  Bouterwek  tells 
us  the  Spaniards  call  their  intriguing  comedies,  might 
be  tried  advantageously  in  the  night,  in  order  to  bring 
the  fancies,  inspired  by  a  belief  in  ghosts,  to  common 
everj^-day  light ;  at  the  same  time  I  admit  that  there  is 
always  a  deep-seated  fear  of  this  kind,  which  only  God, 
or  the  next  world,  can  thoroughly  remove.  Even  the 
fear  of  storms  cannot  be  altogether  eradicated,  at  least  by 
reasoning;  the  tranquillity,  or,  still  better,  the  cheerful- 
ness of  grown-up  persons  during  them  in  the  best  cure. 
Since  what  is  uncommon  is  most  dreaded  it  may  perhaps 
be  numbered  among  the  few  advantages  of  a  town-educa- 


CHAP.  I.]  LEVANA.  o21 

tion,  that  in  it  the  eyo  and  ear  of  a  child  tecome  in- 
diflereut  to  more  objects  than  they  can  do  in  a  village. 
In  nothing,  fear  itself  scarcely  excepted,  does  a  man  make 
such  rapid  advances  as  in  courage.  Kight  marches,  the 
alliance  of  many  boys — for  company  increases  courage  as 
well  as  fear — and  finally  the  histories  of  true  heroes,  such 
as  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden,  rivet  the  shield  of  courage 
more  and  more  firmly  on  the  breast. 

§  106. 

Permit  me  still  to  add  a  few  ingredients  to  the  tonic 
medicines  of  manliness,  ore  I  pass  to  the  mental  moans  of 
strengthening  it.  The  following  reflections  may  stand  in 
the  same  relation  as  brandies  to  the  top  of  a  tree. 

What,  from  the  Fakoor  to  tlio  martyrs  of  Christianity, 
of  love,  of  duty,  and  to  those  who  sacrificed  their  lives  for 
liberty,  has  vanquished  pain,  opinion,  desire,  torture? — 
One  linling  Idea  in  the  heart.  Implant,  then,  in  the  boy 
some  such  living  idea,  wore  it  but  that  of  honour,  and  he 
is  fit  to  boeomo  a  man.  Every  fear  may  be  overcome  by 
placing  it  clearly  before  him. 

Every  child  pictures  to  himself  some  position,  sonic 
trade,  as  the  work-  and  sorrow-dwelling  of  life  ,  and  some 
other  (usually  his  father's)  as  the  look-out  spot  or 
belvidero  of  hope.  Take  fnmi  him  those  t>rvonoou8  charts 
of  heaven  and  hell,  which,  like  warrants  of  arrest,  disarm 
and  render  hiui  the  prisoner  of  fear  and  of  desire.  Brinj;' 
him — not  by  dead  listening, but  by  living  observation— to  a 
k  iiowledgo  of  the  happiness  of  the  most  various  conditions, 
BO  that  he  may  look  upon  life  as  on  the  level  ground  of  a 
pleasure  encampment,  where  even  the  slave  has  pitched 
iiis  tent.  It  \h  much  more  important  that  a  child  should 
not  causelessly  drrud  and  a\'oiil  any  condition,  liowovt>r 
fflocmiy,  than  that  he  whould  not  hopefully  dcsiro  and 
labour  after  any,  even  the  most  brilliant ;  for  hope  leaves 
us  more  understanding  and  more  happiiu»Hs  than  fcMir. 
In  order  to  extract  from  the  tear-press  of  com passicm  some 
feeling  and  jience  foV  a  beggar,  you  choose  to  ernsli  u 
power  which  could  sustain  itself  on  the  bc>ggar's  palitt! 
What  else  do  you  do  than  cause  the  little  shocked  creature 

I,  Y 


322  JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRICH  KICHTER.        {fRAG.  -VI, 

to  prefer  making  a  hundred  beggars  in  after  life,  to  being 
one  himself,  and  perhaps  giving  something  to  some  other  ? 
Always  let  oneness  of  purpose  rule  over  a  boy  :  he  wanted, 
perhaps,  to  have,  or  to  do,  some  certain  thing ;  oblige  him, 
then,  to  take  or  to  do  it.  And  never  command  any  thing 
twice. 

Raise  up  in  him  by  every  possible  means  the  conception 
of  a  higher  tribunal  than  that  of  feeling.  If  he  desire  any 
forbidden  thing,  do  not  move  it  further  from  but  rather 
nearer  to  him,  so  that  he  may  overcome  that  desire  by 
the  sense  of  duty.  Place  your  command  simply  before 
him,  without  any  attractive  concomitants  which  may 
make  it  seem  lighter  than  it  is;  for,  by  this  delicate 
concealment  of  the  nile,  chance,  which  accustoms  to 
nothing,  is  made  master.  The  manner  in  which  the 
command  is  obeyed  is  of  infinitely  more  importance  than 
the  mere  fulfilment  of  it.  Neither  veil  a  refusal,  as 
mothers  are  too  apt  to  do;  perpetual  concealments  are 
impossible.  Why  will  you  not  spare  yourself  by  a  plain 
No,  and  accustom  your  boy  to  cheerful  resignation  ? 
Quiet  submission  to  arbitrary  despotism  weakens  the 
character,  but  to  necessity  strengthens  it ;  be  then  a  fate 
to  your  child !  A  child's  obedience,  without  other  con- 
sideration, can  be  of  no  advantage  to  himself,  for  how  if 
he  obeyed  all  the  world  ?  But  it  is  the  motive  to  it,  as 
reverential  loving  trust,  and  the  perception  of  necessity, 
which  ennobles  him.  Those  who  are  obedient  only  from 
fear  become  mechanical  automata,  hypocrf+es,  flatterers, 
and  are  totally  ungovernable  when  behind  the  back  of 
their  drivers. 

You  bend  (or  break)  the  young  mind  if,  before  the  age 
of  insight  into  political  inequalities,  you  teach  it  to  paj' 
other  respect  than  what  is  due  to  every  human  being  and 
to  age ;  unfettered  by  order-ribbons,  blind  to  stars  and 
gold,  let  the  child  regard  both  the  servant  and  the 
master  of  his  father  with  equal  respect.  A  child  is  by 
nature  a  Diogenes  to  every  Alexander,  and  a  gentle 
Alexander  to  every  Diogenes  ;  let  him  continue  so  ;  never 
let  enervating  humility  towards  rank  approach  him. 

Only  great  objects  can  worthily  occupy  a  boy's  heart ; 
and  what,  except  knowledge,  can  fill  it  better  than  tixe 


CHAP.  I.J  LBVANA.  323 

love  of  his  country,  even  thongli  broken  in  the  diamond- 
mortar  of  the  present  age  ?  This  holy  flame  should  be 
fanned  in  all  schools,  but  certainly  not  after  the  method 
of  Tyrtaeus,  that  is,  by  enthusiasm  for  a  decrepit  and 
justlv  fallen  state,  but  by  inspiration  of  the  "  Hermann's 
Battle  "  and  "  Order  of  Fire  "  of  Klopstock.  However,  I 
scarcely  expect  this  from  the  old  humanists,  who,  in  great 
poems,  take  most  pleasure  in  that  which  is  most  palatable 
in  the  elephant — the  feet. 

No  science  has  so  many  teachers  as  the  science  of 
happiness,  or  pleasure  ;  as  if  this  had  not  already  planted 
its  throne  in  the  hearts  of  cats,  vultures  and,  in  short,  of 
all  other  beasts.  Will  3'ou  then  teach  what  the  beasts 
know  ?  Shall  the  human  mind,  like  a  Centaur,  enter  the 
world  of  mind  with  a  body  bearing  the  marks  of  the 
spur  ?  For  what  reason— save  a  bad  one — are  the  selfish 
excesses  of  children  more  indulged  than  those  which 
display  obstinacy,  the  love  of  eating  more  than  the  love 
of  quarrelling,  as  if  the  teeth  for  tearing  and  those  for 
•  hewing  were  not  equally  important?  If  you  seek  to 
inspire  reverence  for  pure  Worth,  Justice,  and  Religion  by 
any  other  means  than  the  simple  forms  of  these  children 
of  God, — were  it  merely  by  showing  as  an  appendage  some 
advantage  thence  derivable  to  the  animal  propensities, 
instead  of  teaching  that  they  are  due  sacrifices  to  those 
goddesses, — then  have  you  sullied  the  pure  spirit,  and 
made  it  little  and  hypocritical.  You,  like  the  cold  north, 
have  suffered  the  lions  of  the  south  to  shrivel  up  into  cats, 
its  crocodiles  into  lizards. 

If  life  is  a  battle,  let  the  teacher  be  a  poet,  who  may 
animate  the  boy  to  meet  it  with  needful  songs.  Ac- 
custom him  to  regard  his  future,  not  as  a  path  from 
pleasures  (though  innocent)  to  other  pleasures :  nor  even 
as  a  gleaning,  from  spring  time  to  harvest,  of  flowers  and 
fruits;  but  as  a  time  in  which  he  must  execute  some  long 
}>lan :  in  short,  let  him  aim  at  a  long  course  of  activity, 
not  of  pleasure.  Enjoyment  soon  wearies  both  itself  and 
us  :  effort,  never.  That  man  is  happy,  for  instance,  who 
Vjvotes  his  life  to  the  cultivation  of  an  island,  to  the 
liscoverv  of  one  that  is  lost,  or  of  the  extent  of  the  ocean. 
In  London  it  is  he  who  was  bom  rioh,  not  he  who  has 

Y  2 


824  JEAlN'    PAUL   FEIEI>EICH   EICHTEK.         [FEAG.  VI. 

made  himself  rich,  that  commits  suicide ;  and,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  picture,  it  is  not  the  poor  m  ai,  but  he 
who  has  become  poor,  that  kills  himself.  The  miser 
grows  old  enjoying  rather  than  wearied  of  life ;  but  the 
heir  who  comes  into  possession  of  his  active  gains  sinks 
into  ennui.  So  I  would  rather  be  the  court  gardener  who 
watches  and  protects  an  aloe  for  fifteen  j-ear.s,  until  at 
last  it  opens  to  him  the  heaven  of  its  blossom,  than  the 
prince  who  is  hastily  called  to  look  at  the  opened  heaven. 
The  writer  of  a  dictionary  rises  every  morning  like  the 
sun  to  move  past  some  little  star  in  his  zodiac ;  a  new 
letter  is  to  him  a  new  year's  festival,  the  conclusion  of  the 
old  one  a  harvest-home;  and,  since  after  each  capital 
letter  the  whole  alphabet  follows  successively,  the  author 
on  his  paper  may  perhaps  frequently  celebrate  on  one 
and  the  same  day  a  Sunday,  a  Lady-day,  and  a  Crispin's 
holiday. 

Do  not  fear  the  rise  of  the  sentiment  of  honour,  which 
is  nothing  worse  than  the  rough  husk  of  self-esteem,  or 
the  expanded  covers  of  the  tender  wings  which  elevate 
above  the  earth  and  its  flowers.  But,  to  raise  and  en- 
noble that  honour  of  the  individual  into  honour  of  the 
race,  and  that  again  into  honour  for  the  worth  of  mind, 
never  praise  him  who  has  gained  a  prize,  but  those  who 
rank  below  him ;  give  the  honourable  title,  not  as  a  dis- 
tinction for  the  steps  which  have  been  mounted,  but  as 
a  notification  of  neighbourhood  to  what  is  higher;  and, 
lastly,  let  your  praise  afford  more  pleasure  because  you 
are  pleased  than  the  enjoyment  of  the  distinction  gives. 

§  107. 

If  man  resemble  iron  in  his  strength,  he  also,  by  the 
inflammability  of  his  passions,  resembles  that  metal  in 
connection  with  sulphur,  at  whose  touch  the  hot  bar  of 
iron  dissolves  in  drops.  Does  mere  passion  give  strength  ? 
As  certainly  as  a  Parisian  revolution  gives  freedom,  or  a 
comet  bright  comet-lighted  nights ;  only  they  pass  away 
again.  The  most  powerful  men  of  antiquity,  the  rulers 
or  judges  of  their  age,  and  the  examples  of  all  other 
ages,  ever  sprung  from  the  Stoic  school ;  passions  served 


CHAP.  I.J  LEVANA.  325 

them  only  as  supports  during  storms,  nc  t  as  the  oeam  of 
a  balance ! 

As  with  the  strength,  so  it  is  with  the  light  which 
passions,  according  to  the  declaration  of  Helve tius,  ought 
to  throw  upon  their  objects ;  it  is,  forsooth,  just  as  Cha- 
teaubriand says,  that  in  storms  rocks  shine  with  the  foam 
of  the  waves,  and  so  warn  oflF  ships : — very  dear,  and  very 
changeful,  light-houses ! 

Admit  your  boy,  then,  as  much  as  possible  into  the 
Stoic  school ;  and  that  less  by  instruction  than  by  the 
example  of  true  Stoics  of  all  ages.  But  that  he  may  not 
mistake  the  Stoic  for  a  lethargic  Dutchman,  or  even  a 
stupid  savage,  let  him  see  that  the  true  inner  fire  of  the 
breast  glows  most  intensely  in  those  men  who  manifest 
thix)ugh  life  a  steadfast  will,  and  not,  like  the  slaves 
of  passion,  various  isolated  ebullitions  and  desires :  and 
name  to  him  such  men  as  Socrates  and  Cato,  who  were 
animated  by  a  constant,  but  therefore  tranquil,  inspiration. 

§  108. 

This  steadfast  volition,  which  tranquillises  every  mental 
tumult,  does  not  presuppose  any  mere  single  object,  but 
the  grand  final  aim  of  life— a  high  ideal — which  is  the 
central  sun  of  all  its  revolutions.  It  serves,  therefore,  to 
produce  a  brave  or  great  life ;  not  a  great  or  brave  indi- 
vidual action :  of  this,  indeed,  ever}'-  weakling  is  capable. 
And  so  it  never  presents  the  spectacle  of  a  lonely  moun- 
tain, though  there  are  such  upon  the  earth,  but  it  resembles 
those  continuous  chains  of  mountain-like  clouds  we  see  in 
the  sky. 

An  unchanging  will  can  only  aim  at  what  is  universal, 
at  what  is  divine,  be  it  freedom,  or  religion,  or  science,  or 
art.  The  more  divided  the  will  is,  the  more  is  it  liable  to 
be  disturbed  by  the  outer  world.  As  man — in  opposition 
to  the  beasts,  which  only  apprehend  the  single  individuals 
presented  to  their  senses — extends  and  resolves  the  known 
world  into  various  species,  and  his  thoughts  into  categories, 
80  does  the  ideal  concentrate  the  desires  in  one  general 
all-embracing  effort. 

This  ideal  can  be  imparted  by  no  education — for  it  is 


326  JEAN   PAUL   FKIEDRICH   EICHTER.         [PRAG.  VI. 

our  very  inmost  self — but  it  must  be  presupposed,  and  so 
maybe  animated  by  all.  Life  is  kindled  only  by  life; 
and  the  highest  life  can  only  be  called  into  existence  in  a 
child  by  example,  whether  present  or  historical,  or,  which 
unites  both,  by  poetry. 

The  present  living  time  cannot  so  easily  purchase,  or 
find,  great  men  as  littL^  tin  figures  for  children.  But  the 
distant  history  of  the  universe  can  furnish  them  to  us  :  — 
we  need  but  call  to  mind  the  soul-stirring  contempt  of 
life  displayed  in  wars  for  freedom  which  would  have 
immortalised  Plutarch,  had  he  been  its  historian,  as  cer- 
tainly as  his  ancient  heroes ; — -but  it  has  found  no  Plu- 
tarch. Greatness,  if  not  misrepresented,  is  yet  forgotten  ; 
and  so,  in  the  midst  of  the  best  present  time,  we  yet  need 
the  mighty  past,  as  birds  of  passage  do  the  moonshine,  to 
fly  into  warm  countries.  Parents  and  teachers  and  a  few 
acquaintances  are,  unfortunately,  placed  before  the  growing 
boy  instead  of  the  saints'  images  of  the  ideal — bad  and 
useless !  A  lawgiver,  or  any  man,  who  daily  in  the  child's 
presence  changes  from  dressing  gown  to  dress  coat,  can 
never  arouse  that  purest  sentiment  (such  Chateaubriand 
considers  wonder)  in  whose  heights  all  the  stars  of  the 
child's  ideal  move  and  shine.  If  children  must  pass  behind 
the  light  of  fair  examples,  why,  0  why,  should  you  give 
them  gloomy  instead  of  glorious  ones  ? 

But  Clio,  the  Muse  of  the  past,  stands  by  you,  and 
calls  her  father  Apollo  to  her  assistance.  Only  fill  the 
boy's  mind  with  the  glorified  world  of  heroes,  with 
lovingly  painted  pictures  of  great  men  of  every  kind, 
and  his  in-born  ideal  will  not  first  be  called  to  life  in  the 
midst  of  that  work-a-day  ideal  which  also  sleeps  in  every 
one. 

So  let  every  poetic  ideal  shine  free  and  bright  before 
him ;  his  eye  will  not  thereby  be  blinded  to  two  greater 
ideals, — to  that  which  his  own  conscience  commands  him 
to  be,  and  to  the  idea  of  God. 

The  educator,  Campe,  rightly  recommends  the  illumined 
hemisphere  of  the  present  human  race  to  be  turned  towards 
children :  but  certainty  not  that  they  may  thereb}'  learn 
patience  towards  the  mediocre  — impatience  were  better — 
but  that  the  glory  of  the  world,  supposing  it  to  come  from 


C^IAP.  I.l  LEVANA.  327 

dew-<irope  rather  than  jewels,  may  shine  through  their 
morning.  What  I  consider  dangerous — even  more  dan- 
gerous than  the  representation  of  man-devils,*  as  every 
child  daily  hears  of  their  hellish  master  without  injury — 
is,  laying  mixed  characters  before  them  from  which  to 
select  those  worthy  of  imitation;  you  might  as  well 
set  a  child  to  imitate  his  own  similarly  mixed  nature. 
What  else  does  a  boy  learn  from  that  many-godded  con- 
federation-morality but  to  apply  the  easy  balance 
between  victory  and  defeat  to  himself?  You  might 
also  apply  much  more  closely  the  Gospel  doctrine  of 
forbearance  towards  human  infirmities — namely,  towards 
his  own. 

Much  that  is  very  plausible,  and  very  prolix,  will  be 
urged  against  this  idealisation  of  youth  by  pedagogic 
elephant  hunters,  who  hunt  down  what  is  great  in  order 
to  have  it  tame,  serviceable,  and  toothless  in  their  stables. 
*'  All  this  is  very  fine,  but  only  fit  for  the  world  of 
romance.  What  can  come  out  of  such  excessive  straining 
of  the  young  mind  but  a  vain  contemplation  and  useless 
opposition  to  the  real  world,  by  which,  nevertheless,  he 
must  live,  and  which  could  scarcely  be  directed  by  the 
dreams  of  a  visionary,  or  of  a  beardless  boy  ?  There  are, 
to  use  the  language  of  novel  writers,  neither  Phoenixes 
nor  Basilisks,  but  there  are  common  land  and  water  birds. 
In  short,  the  young  man  must  go  forth  into  the  world, 
as  the  old  man  has  done,  and  learn  to  forget  his  empty 
giant  images.  Here  again  the  middle  is  the  right  course ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  youth  may  be  told  that  men  may 
possibly  become  so  and  so  ;  however,  one  must  not  be 
too  critical  if  they  do  not,  but  live  for  the  state  in  which 
one  lives :  and  again,  that  those  ideal  notions  are  only 
of  value  and  use  in  so  far  as  they  manifest  those  qualities 
in  connection  with  the  available  reality ;  so,  in  a  really 
allegorical  sense,  every  scholar  in  Zurich,  be  he  professor 

*  Yet  this  should  be  but  rare;  for  it  is  dangerous  even  to  think  of 
the  deeper  crimes;  but  this  granted,  a  child  beholds  without  injury 
(for  exiiiiiple)  the  worst,  but  to  him  already  known,  degrees  of  hatred, 
murder,  &c. ;  but  unheard  of  forms  of  murder  do  him  harm,  for  the 
more  strangely  they  horrify  him,  so  much  the  more  do  they  make  him 
familiar  with  the  small  uprisings  of  emotion. 


328  JEAN   PAUL   FEIEDKICH   EICHTEB.         [fRAG.  VI. 

'  P  divinity,  law,  or  pedagogy,  must  yet  be  enrolled 
member  of  some  guild,  that  of  the  shoemakers,  weavers, 
or  S'-me  other  trade.  And  only  thus,  and  not  otherwise, 
can  citizens  be  given  to  their  country  worthy  of  their 
parents  and  teachers." 

That  last  I  admit.  But,  good  heavens !  would  you, 
then,  help  to  weaken  what  the  age  and  the  world  weaken 
without  your  aid  ?  You  really  act  as  if  from  after  years, 
from  the  valley  of  life,  gradual  elevation,  instead  of 
depression,  were  to  be  exjjected.  and  men  had  not  to  issue 
forth  and  hasten  over.  Should  you  not  treat  the  eyes 
of  the  mind  at  least  as  carefully  as  those  of  the  body, 
before  which  at  first  you  place  the  concave  glasses  which 
diminish  in  the  smallest  possible  degree,  because  after- 
wards their  use  necessitates  such  as  are  more  concave  and 
diminish  more?  The  worst  that  you  labour  to  avoid 
is  only  that  the  youth  should  exalt  some  reality  into 
his  ideal ;  but  the  still  worse  thing  that  you  endeavour 
to  effect  is,  that  he  should  darken  and  incorporate  his 
ideal  with  reality.  Oh  !  there  is  enough  of  that  without 
you.  The  ripe  sunflower  no  longer  turns  its  heavy  seed- 
laden  head  towards  the  sun.  The  Ehine  soon  finds  its 
plain,  through  which  it  creeps  with  no  glittering  water- 
falls, and  bears  its  burdens  to  Holland.  What  is  all  the 
gain  the  young  soul  can  obtain  from  the  avoidance  of 
a  few  false  steps,  compared  with  the  tremendous  loss  of 
the  holy  fire  of  youth,  of  its  high-soaring  wings,  its  great 
plans,  without  which  it  creeps  as  nakedly  into  cold 
narrow  life  as  most  men  creep  out  of  it  ?  How  can  life 
ripen  without  the  ideal  glow  of  youth,  or  wine  without 
its  August?  The  best  that  men  have  done,  if  it  have 
come  in  the  late  season  of  life,  has  been  but  a  late-growing 
seed  which  the  tree  of  life  in  their  childhood's  paradise 
has  borne ;  it  is  like  the  realised  dreams  of  their  youth, 
ti  ave  yon  never  seen  how  a  man  has  been  governed  and 
conducted  thoughout  life  by  the  one  god-like  image  of 
his  spring  time  ?  With  what  else  than  the  bread-cart  of 
clever  selfishness  would  you  replace  this  guiding  Pole- 
star  ?  Finally  :  what  is  the  one  thing  needful  to  men  ? 
Certainly  not  the  strength  of  the  sacrifices  to  what  is 
best — for  let  a  God  but  once  appear  in  reality,  or,  as  in 


CHAP,  n.]  LEVANA.  329 

France,  a  Goddess  (liberty),  and  man  willingly  divests 
himself  of  every  thing  human  which  the  divinity  does 
not  require: — but  man  needs  something  other  than 
strength ;  faith  in,  and  contemplation  of,  a  Deity  who 
merits  human  sacrifices  of  a  nobler  kind.  Men  would 
show  themselves  as  Gods  under  the  visible  leadership 
of  a  God.  But  if  you  expel  that  ideal  from  the  heart, 
there  vanish  with  it,  temple,  altar,  sacrifice,  and  every 
thing. 


CHAPTER  n. 

TRUTHFULNESS. 
§    109. 


Truthfulness  —  I  mean  the  fact  of  speaking  truth 
intentionally,  and  even  to  the  injury  of  self — is  less 
a  branch  than  a  blossom  of  man's  moral  strength  of 
character.  Weaklings  must  lie,  hate  it  as  much  as  they 
may.  One  threatening  look  drives  them  into  the  midst 
of  sin's  net.  The  difierence  between  the  present  and 
the  middle  age  consists  less  in  the  existence  of  injustice, 
ciuelty  and  lust — for  these,  especially  the  last,  were 
abundant  enough  before  the  discovery  of  America — than 
in  the  want  of  truthfulness.  The  first  sin  on  the  earth — 
happily  the  devil  was  guilty  of  it  on  the  tree  of  know- 
ledge— was  a  lie ;  and  the  last  will  surely  be  a  lie  too. 
The  world  is  punished  for  the  increase  of  truths  by  the 
decrease  of  truthfulness. 

§  110. 

Lying,  that  devouring  cancer  of  the  inner  man,  is  more 
severely  judged  and  defined  by  the  feeling  of  nations, 
than  by  philosophers.  The  Greeks,  who  suffered  their 
gods  to  commit  as  many  crimes  with  impunity  as  theii 
present  representatives,  the  gods  of  the  earth,  do,  yet 
condemned  them  for  perjury — that  root  and  quintessence 
of  a  lie — to  pass  a  vear  of  lifelessness  under  the  ground 


330  JEAN   PAUL   FKIEDRICH   KICHTER.         [fEAG.  YF. 

in  Tartarus,  and  then  to  endure  nine  j^ears  of  torments. 
The  ancient  Persian  taught  his  child  nothing  in  the 
whole  circle  of  morality  but  truthfulness.  The  gram- 
matic  resemblance  of  his  language  to  the  German  beauti- 
.'\illy  shows  also  the  moral  resemblance  of  the  people. 
Anton*  tells  us  that  lying  is  originally  derived  from 
to  lie,  i.  e.  to  be  prostrate,  probably  in  reference  to  the 
abject  slave  who  dare  raise  neither  body  nor  mind.  I  >ying 
and  stealing,  (which,  as  an  acted  lie,  deprives  of  honour 
though  murder  does  not)  and  a  box  on  the  ear,  which  the 
ancient  German  dreaded  more  than  a  wound,  are  brought 
into  close  connection  by  our  language  in  its  proverbs: 
and  our  near  relatives,  the  English,  know  of  no  more 
abusive  epithet  than  liar.  The  German  tournaments 
were  closed  to  the  liar  as  well  as  the  murderer .f  I  grant, 
however,  that  in  the  greatest  of  all  tournaments,  war, 
the  greatest  lying  opened  the  lists  of  knightly  exercise  in 
war  to  a  prince  with  whom  no  true  treaty  or  peace  could 
be  made. 

Can  this  abhorrence  of  false  words  be  merely  grounded 
on  the  violation  of  mutual  rights  and  confidence,  and  the 
injury  arising  from  broken  contracts  ?  It  is  contradicted 
by  the  fact  that  we  more  readily  pardon  lying  a-ctions 
than  lying  words.  Action,  mimicry  and  silence  lie  far 
oftener  than  the  tongue,  which  men  endeavour  as  long  as 
possible  to  preserve  pure  from  the  hateful  perpetration  of 
a  lie,  the  plague-spot  of  the  inner  man.  Heavens !  are 
we  not  already  accustomed,  without  knowing  it,  to  innu- 
merable fictions  of  law  and  of  poetry — to  political  secret 
articles,  mesne  tenures,  vice-men,  masters  of  ceremonies, 
comedians  and  rehearsals  of  comedies,  false  hair,  false 
teeth,  false  calves,  and  many  other  things  of  a  similar 
kind ;  and  yet  are  we  thereby  in  the  smallest  degree  less 
shocked  when  a  man  utters  a  deliberate  lie  ?  What  de- 
ceptions there  are  everywhere,  from  the  otherwise  lie- 
hating  London,  where  three-fourths  of  the  current-money 
is  false,i  to  Pekin,  where  wooden  hams  are  sold  wrapped 
up  in   pig's   skin !  §      Since   an   honourable   soldier  and 

*  History  of  the  German  Nation,  i.  66. 

t  Schmidt's  History  of  the  Germans,  vol.  iv. 

J  Colquhoun.  §  Grosier. 


CHAP.  II.J  LEVANA.  331 

srentleman  is  less  ashamed  of  a  fraud  and  a  bankruptcy 
than  of  a  lie,  at  the  bare  reproach  of  which  he  will  shoot 
himself -and  since  men  of  the  world,  and  even  moralists, 
permit  themselves  ambiguity  of  action  rather  than  an 
actual  lie — and  since,  finally,  no  blush  is  caused  by  any 
sin  so  burning  as  that  produced  by  a  lie — can  words  be 
something  higher  than  deeds,  the  tongue  than  the  hand  ? 
These  questions  cannot  be  perfectly  answered  by  the 
mimic  ambiguity  of  actions,  compared  with  the  simplicity 
of  speech;  for  actions  are  not  always  ambiguous,  and  men 
will  often  consider  before  speaking  decidedly,  when  they 
would  not  before  acting.  Men  are  not  ashamed  to  under- 
mine and  bear  ill-will  towards  other  men,  but  they  are 
ashamed  openly  to  tell  a  lie. 

§  111. 

What  is  it  that  makes  it  so  unholy  ?  It  is  this  :  two 
individual  beings  are  stationed  with  regard  to  each  other 
as  upon  different  islands,  and  locked  up  within  prison-bars 
of  the  bones,  and  behind  the  curtain  of  the  skin.  Mere 
motion  shows  me  only  life,  but  not  its  internal  cause.  The 
animated  eye  of  a  Raffaelle's  Madonna  often  speaks  to  us 
from  the  canvas,  which  yet  houses  no  mind  ;  wax  figures 
are  hollow;  and  the  ape,  our  mocking  image,  is  dumb. 
Jn  what  glorified  form,  then,  does  the  human  soul  re- 
veal itself?  In  speech  only;  in  reason  thus  made  m^n; 
in  this  audible  freedom.  I  speak  of  universal  innate 
language,  without  which  all  its  peculiarities,  such  as 
modes  of  verbal  expression,  were  neither  comprehensible 
nor  possible.  Since  instinct  and  mechanism  can  imitate 
all  other  signs  of  life,  it  is  by  speech  only  that  the  freedom 
of  the  creative  thinker  in  a  free  world  of  thought  is  re- 
vealed to  another ;  and  this  herald  and  ambassador  (Bath- 
kol)  *  of  freedom  lays  the  foundations  of  morality  by 
announcing  individuals,  like  kings,  to  one  another.  The 
fetters  of  the  tongue  are  the  fetters  of  the  soul ;  and  thero 
are  no  customs  save  the  customs  of  language.     The  testa- 

♦  Bath-kol,  Hebrew,  "  Daughter  of  the  Voice,"  which  is  to  say,  the 
Divine  revelation  after  the  cessation  of  the  revelation  through  the 
prophets. 


332  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDEICH   RICHTER.         [fRAG.  VI. 

ment  of  the  soul  is  opened  by  tlie  mouth,  and  its  last  will 
made  known.  It  is  by  the  present  conversion  of  mobile 
speech  into  quiet  writing  and  painting,  by  this  strict 
imprisonment  of  the  breath  of  the  soul,  that  both  the 
power  of  language  and  the  blackness  of  a  lie  are  visibly 
diminished.  For,  since  every  thing  is  but  a  sign,  it  follows 
that  every  sign  can  be  again  signified  even  to  infinity. 

But  now  if  a  fellow-being,  another  living  soul,  come  to 
me  and  utter  a  deliberate  lie,  how  annihilating !  His  soul 
has  fled  away  from  me  and  left  but  its  fleshly  house 
behind ;  what  he  then  says,  since  it  is  not  the  soul  which 
speaks,  is  as  meaningless  as  the  wind  which,  with  all  its 
howling,  expresses  no  pain.  A  word  often  effaces  or 
explains  an  action ;  but  the  reverse  scarcely  ever  occurs. 
It  must  be  a  long  course  of  action  which  will  remove  the 
thorn  from  one  word,  or  restore  the  trusted  use  of  the 
tongue.  The  whole  enchanted  palace  of  a  man's  thoughts 
is  rendered  invisible  by  the  single  blast  of  a  lie,  for  one 
lie  is  the  mother  of  all  lies.  What  can  I  say  to  him  who 
is,  or  carries  about  with  him,  his  own  talking  machine, 
and  may  have  thoughts  quite  different  from  those  ho 
sounds  on  his  machine  ?  Moreover,  he  gives  me — what 
is  no  partial  but  a  universal  injury — instead  of  my  soul, 
a  machine ;  instead  of  my  truths,  falsehoods  ;  and  breaks 
down  the  bridge  of  mind,  or  at  least  converts  it  into  a 
1  ridge  which  he  can  let  down  for  himself,  but  draw  up 


y  gainst  others. 


§  112. 


And  now  back  to  our  dear  children !  During  the  first 
five  years  they  say  neither  what  is  true,  nor  what  is  false 
— they  merely  talk.  Their  talking  is  thinking  aloud ; 
and  since  the  one  half  of  thought  is  frequently  a  yes,  and 
the  other  a  no,  and  both  escape  them  (though  not  us),  they 
seem  to  lie  when  they  are  merely  talking  to  themselves. 
Further :  at  first  they  find  great  pleasure  in  exercising 
their  new  art  of  speech,  and  so  they  often  talk  nonsense 
only  for  the  sake  of  hearing  their  acquisitions  in  language. 
They  frequently  do  not  understand  some  word  that  you 
have  said — little  children,  for  instance,  often  confuse  to- 
da}^  to-morrow,  yesterday,  as  well  as  numbers  and  degrees 


CHAP,  n.]  LEV  ANA.  333 

of  comparison,  and  so  give  rather  a  mistaken  than  a  false 
repl)'.  Again,  they  use  their  tongues  more  in  sport  than 
earnest,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  long  discourses  they  hold 
with  their  puppets,  as  a  minister  or  an  author  does  with 
his  ;  and  they  easilj^  ^PP^y  this  sjDortive  talking  to  living 
people.  Children  always  fly  to  the  warm  sunny  side  of 
hope ;  if  the  bird  or  the  dog  have  gone  away,  they  will 
say,  without  any  further  reason.  It  will  come  back  again. 
And,  since  they  cannot  altogether  separate  their  hopes, 
that  is  their  fancies,  from  copies  or  truths,  their  own  self- 
deception  assumes  the  appearance  of  a  lie.  For  instance, 
a  truth-speaking  little  girl  related  to  me  frequent  appear- 
ances of  the  infant  Christ,*  and  what  he  had  said,  done, 
&c.  It  is  worthy  of  consideration  whether  children,  when 
they  poetise  a  lie,  do  not  often  relate  remembered  dreams, 
which  must  necessarily  be  confounded  by  them  with  real 
occurrences.  To  this  class  belongs  that  talkative  teazing 
and  joking  f  often  seen  in  eight  or  ten  year  old  boys, 
which  arises  from  superabundance  of  animal  spirits. 

In  all  these  cases,  whc?n  the  form  of  a  lie  is  not  to  be 
shown  in  any  dark  glass,  say  merely, — "  Don't  talk  non- 
sense, speak  seriously." 

Finally,  an  untruth  about  what  is  to  come  is  often 
confounded  with  an  untruth  about  what  has  hjippened. 
Kow  if,  in  the  case  of  grown-up  men,  we  do  not  consider 
the  breach  of  an  official  oath,  having  reference  to  the 
future  only,  equally  culpable  with  the  black  perjury  which 
relates  to  the  past,  we  should  in  a  still  greater  degree 
in  the  case  of  children,  before  whose  little  ken  time  and 
space  are  magnified  and  to  whom  a  day  is  as  inscrutable 
as  a  year  to  us,  clearly  distinguish  between  the  untruth- 
fulness of  promi^ics  and  the  untruthfulness  of  statements, 
something  very  different,  and  much  worse,  is  the  narra- 
tive-lie which  seekw  to  gain  some  future  thing  by  lying. 

Truthfulness,  which  would  offer  even  a  bloody  sacrifice' 

*  The  infant  Christ  is,  in  Germany,  feigned  to  be  the  sender  of  the 
presents  which  adorn  the  Christmas  tree. — Trans. 

t  For  the  true  liar  seldom  jokes,  and  the  true  wit  does  not  lie,  from 
the  sharp  open  Swift  back  to  Erasmus,  who  even  experienced  a 
physical  antipathy  to  a  liar,  as  also  to  fish. — Pabavicini,  Singularia  di 
Viru  Claris.,  Cent,  il  38. 


S34  JEAN   PAUL   FEIEDRICH   RICHTEE.         [fEAG.  VT. 

to  its  word  as  its  word,  is  a  godlike  blossom  on  an  earthly 
plant ;  therefore,  it  is  not  the  first  but  the  last  virtue 
in  order  of  time.  The  simple  savage  is  full  of  deceit, 
both  in  words  and  actions ;  the  peasant,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  some  trifling  danger,  will  tell  a  lie  about  what 
is  past ;  but  he  considers  it  dishonourable  to  tell  a  pro- 
spective lie,  and  keeps  his  word.  And  yet  you  can 
require  in  a  child,  whom  you  have  yet  to  educate,  the 
last  and  noblest  fruits  of  truth?  How  much  you  err  is 
proved  by  the  fact,  that  lying  children — all  other  circum- 
stances being  equal — have  grown  up  into  truthful  men  : 
I  appeal  to  the  Eousseau's  ribbon-lie  of  every  conscience. 

There  are,  however,  two  decided  lies  with  regard  to 
the  two  times ; — no  other  lies  are  possible  than  either 
those  which  look  forward  to  the  future  or  backward  to 
the  past.  The  flrst  is  seen  when  the  child  endeavours 
to  secure  himself  some  booty  by  lying  words  or  deeds ; 
the  second,  when  he  denies,  through  fear,  his  own  actions. 

What  is  to  be  done  in  both  these  circumstances  ? 

§  113. 

What  is  to  be  done  before  they  occur?  That  is  the 
question. 

The  child,  blinded  and,  as  it  were,  imprisoned  by  his 
own  existence,  acquires  his  first  knowledge  of  morality 
by  observing  others ;  and  only  perceives  the  hatefulness 
of  a  heard  lie,  not  of  one  spoken  by  himself.  Show  him, 
then,  the  lofty  throne  of  truthfulness  in  others,  compared 
with  the  abyss  of  their  falsehood ;  be  what  you  desire 
him  to  be ;  and  frequently  repeat  th^t  you  do  even  the 
most  indiff'erent  things  because  you  had  previously  said 
you  would.  It  has  a  powerful  effect  on  the  little  heart 
if  he  occasionally  hear  his  father,  who  seems  to  him 
a  kind  of  free  universal  monarch,  complain  ; — but  mark, 
it  must  only  be  in  true  cases,  for  truthfulness  in  the  child 
cannot  grow  at  the  expense  of  truthfulness  in  the  parents 
— that,  for  instance,  he  would  rather  not  go  out  with  him, 
but,  having  promised  to  do  so,  he  must  now  unwillingly 
keep  his  word. 

If    the   child   have  promised   something,   remind   him 


C5IIAP.  II.]  LEVANA.  385 

frequently  of  it  as  the  time  approaches,  but  without  using 
other  words  than  "  you  said  so,"  and  at  last  compel  him 
to  the  performance.  But  i:*^  he  have  done  something,  you 
cannot  be  too  sparing  in  your  inquiries,  which  may  easily 
become  so  painful.  The  younger  the  child  is  the  fewer 
questions  you  ought  to  ask,  the  more  ought  you  to  seem 
all-knowing  or  remain  ignorant.  Do  you  not  consider 
that  you  apply  a  fiery  trial,  such  as  Huss  and  other 
martyrs  have  endured,  to  children— to  whom  a  threaten- 
ing father  is  a  penal  judge,  a  prince  and  a  fate,  his  rod 
a  Jove's  thunderbolt,  and  the  next  questioning  moment 
an  eternity  of  hellish  torments — when,  by  your  concealed 
anger  and  the  prospect  of  punishment  after  confession, 
you  place  them  in  the  dangerous  position  of  choosing 
whether  they  shall  obey  instinct  or  an  idea  ?  To  truth 
belongs  freedom ;  the  criminal  stands  without  fetters 
during  trial ;  and  man,  the  reverse  of  Proteus,  speaks  the 
truth  when  free.  The  more  free  the  education,  the  more 
truthful  is  the  child.  All  truth-loving  ages  and  nations, 
from  the  German  to  the  British,  have  been  free ;  lying 
China  is  a  prison,  and  romanizare  (romancing)  meant 
lying  when  the  Eomans  were  slaves. 

At  the  same  time  do  not  let  the  remission  of  punish- 
ment be  the  incitement  and  reward  of  truth :  an  act  of 
indemnity  which  can  as  little  make  the  child  good  and 
true  as  escaped  suffering  the  unpunished  thief.  If  you 
must  inquire,  use  affectionate  words,  and  apply  to  the 
lie  the  pain  you  would  spare  the  child. 

But  if  a  lie  be  proved  against  the  child,  solemnly  utter 
the  judgment  "  guilty  of  lying,"  with  a  shocked  tone  and 
look,  with  all  the  horrror  due  to  this  sin  against  nature 
and  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  inflict  the  punishment.  The 
only  punishments  I  would  permit  for  lying  are  such  as 
affect  the  honour,  and  can  be  removed  as  solemnly,  suddenly 
and  completely  as  inflicted,  so  as  not  to  lose  their  effect 
by  gradual  diminution.  The  Iroquois  blacken  the  faces 
of  those  who  celebrate  their  heroes  with  lying  songs.  The 
Siamese  sew  up  the  lips  of  lying  women,  as  if  they  were 
wounds  I  have  nothing  to  say  against  the  blackening; 
on  the  contrary,  1  have  myself  occasionally  punished  a  lie 
Beverely  by  marking  a  spot  of  ink  on  the  brow,  which 


336  JEAN   PAUL   FEIEDRICH   KICHTER.         [fRAG.  VI. 

was  not  to  be  washed  off  without  permission,  and  which 
eat  deeply  into  the  conscience.  But  I  am  more  in  favour 
of  the  Siamese  plan  of  closing  the  lips,  I  mean  of  forbidding 
speaking  to  those  who  have  spoken  wickedly.  The  same 
principle  which  led  the  ancient  Germans  to  cut  out  the 
tongues  of  the  Roman  advocates  sends  the  misused  member, 
which  serves  the  mind  worse  than  the  stomach,  into  the 
convent  of  La  Trappe.  I  think  this  punishment  which 
petrifies  the  tongue,  as  Paul  did  the  serpent  at  Malta,  is 
juster,  lighter  and  more  definite  than  that  which  Kousseau 
and  Kant  would  inflict  on  a  lying  child ;  namely,  not  to 
believe  him  for  a  time,  which  only  means  to  seem  not 
to  believe  him.  For  in  this  case  the  judge  himself  lies 
during  the  punishment  for  lying :  and  will  not  the  little 
culprit  arrive  at  the  knowledge  of  this  pretence  by  his 
consciousness  of  speaking  the  truth  ?  Moreover,  how  and 
when  will  you  make  the  necessary  return  from  disbelief 
to  confidence  ?  At  the  same  time,  Kant's  punishment 
may  occasionally  ha\e  a  beneficial  tendency  in  the  case  of 
grown-up  daughters. 

Never  tell  any  child  under  six  years  old  to  conceal 
anything,  even  though  it  were  a  pleasure  you  were 
planning  for  some  one  you  love.  The  clear  sky  of  child- 
like open-heartedness  must  not  be  covered  even  by  the 
morning  glow  of  shame ;  and  your  instructions  will  soon 
teach  him  to  add  secrets  of  his  own  to  yours.  The  heroic 
virtue  of  silence  requires  for  its  practice  the  powers  of 
ripening  reason.  Keason  teaches  us  to  be  silent;  the 
heart  teaches  us  to  speak. 

For  this  and  other  reasons  I  consider  it  wrong,  at  least 
for  the  first  five  years,  to  forbid  a  child  to  ask  for  any 
thing  ;  especially  if  the  mother  append  the  poisonous  sugar 
of  a  promise  to  give  it  afterwards.  For,  are  wishes  sins? 
or  is  the  confession  of  a  wish  a  sin  ?  During  the  silence 
attached  to  the  gift  will  not  a  longing  for  enjoyment  and 
reward,  and  the  power  of  dissimulation,  be  maintained  and 
fostered  ?  And  is  it  not  much  easier  to  give  an  entire 
refusal  after  the  short  question  than  after  the  long  wait- 
ing f  This  mistaken  command  arises  from  the  maternal 
inability  to  utter  an  immediate  and  decisive  "  no." 

Do  not  despise  all  kinds  of  little  helps.     For  instance, 


UHAP.  n.J  LEVANA.  337 

do  not  press  the  child  for  an  immediate  answer ;  a  lie 
easily  escapes  from  haste,  and  must  then  be  supported  by 
another.  Give  him  a  little  tim-e  for  reflection  before  he 
speak.  Further,  remember  in  your  most  indifferent  pro- 
mises and  declarations — and  all  the  more  because  they  are 
indifferent  to  you — that  children  have  a  better  memory  than 
you  about  all  things,  but  especially  for  and  against  you, 
and  that  you  must  protect  them  from  the  dangerous  appear- 
ance of  your  own  innocent  over-hasty  untruthfulness. 

The  author  has  occasionally  asked  himself  whether 
children's  sense  of  truth  may  not  be  injured  by  the  acting 
of  charades  and  little  comedies.  Besides  the  necessary 
excitement  of  instant  creation,  children's  charades  have 
also  this  advantage  over  children's  comedies, — that  mere 
charades  are  only  a  higher  imitation  of  the  puppet  games 
which  children,  even  at  an  earlier  age,  played  extempore 
with  their  dolls  and  their  companions  without  any  injury 
to  truthfulness ;  as  if,  even  then,  they  would  take  refuge 
from  the  cold  winds  of  real  life  behind  the  shelter  of 
imaginary  life.  In  charades  the  child  lives, — at  onco 
poet  and  player — in  a  strange  character,  it  is  true,  but 
still  not  in  a  borrowed  one,  and  uttering  the  words 
prompted  by  the  eager  moment.  In  plays  he  coldly  learns 
by  heart  the  representation  (simulatio)  of  a  character  and 
certain  words,  in  order  afterwards  to  give  a  lively  repre- 
sentation of  both.  Truth  has  also  this  advantage  in  cha- 
rades ;  that  the  child  must  at  all  events  reply  from  his 
own  mind  to  the  changing  questions  of  the  time ;  whereas, 
in  a  learnt  comedy,  ho  brings  with  him  every  answer 
prepared  for  weeks.  And  since  even  great  actors  do  not 
consider  the  advantage  to  be  gained  by  pure  universal 
human  nature,  without  regard  to  artistic  effect,  as  the 
matter  of  chief  importance,  we  should  exempt  children 
from  an  exercise  in  which  the  advantage  is  more  doubtful 
than  the  injury. 

Our  ancestors  magnified  every  lie  into  perjury  by 
always  pointing  out  to  children  the  universal  presence 
of  God :  and  why  should  not  this  warning,  which  converts 
every  promise  into  an  oath  and  doubles  the  sin  while 
rendering  it  more  difficult  of  commission  to  a  conscience 
alive  to  the  Divinity,  be  still  ield  up  to  children  ? 

I.  z 


338  JEAN  PAUL  PRIEDEICH  RICHTER.         [fRAG.  VI. 

Finally,  since  truthfulness,  as  a  conscious  virttie  and 
sacrifice,  is  the  blossom,  nay,  the  pollen,  of  the  whole 
moral  growth,  it  can  only  grow  with  its  growth,  and  open 
when  it  has  reached  its  height.  You  have  otAj  to  keep 
away  weeds  while  you  give  it  freedom,  save  it  from  over- 
powering temptations,  and  forbid  all  soul-bending  customs 
(such  as  obliging  a  child  to  return  thanks  for  a  whipping, 
and  to  make  compliments  to  strangers). 


CHAPTER  III. 

EDUCATION   OF   THE  AFFECTIONS. 
§    114. 

I  SAID,  in  the  htindred-and-first  section,  that  love  is  the 
second  hemisphere  of  the  moral  world,  that  it  turns  to 
what  is  external,  as  honour  does  to  what  is  internal,  and 
so  forth.  The  holy  essence  of  love  has  been  fathomed 
neither  by  the  fraternity  of  novelists  who,  like  selfish 
women,  mingle  regard  to  self  with  the  beloved  object, 
nor  by  merely  intellectual  philosophers,  who  view  its 
depth  partly  as  an  instinct  utterly  without  and  below 
their  categorical  imperative  (law  of  morals),  and  partly 
as  mere  justice,  a  kind  of  rational  regard ;  to  such  men 
love  and  poetry  seem  a  pair  of  superfluous  wings  dis- 
figuring the  useful  arms  behind  which  they  are  placed. 
Only  Plato,  Hemsterhuis,  Jacobi,  Herder,  and  a  few  like 
them,  have  brought  to  the  love  of  wisdom  (philosophy) 
the  wisdom  of  love.  He  who  called  love  the  positive  law 
of  morality,  will  at  least  not  be  condemned  by  one  great 
man — by  Jesus  Christ,  the  founder  of  the  first  religion  of 
love  in  the  midst  of  a  Judaism  inimical  to  all  other 
nations,  and  an  age  inimical  to  philanthropy.  But  the 
essence  of  love — this  all-sustaining  deity,  the  true  divine 
unity  of  all,  in  which  the  individual  soul  feels  more 
than  it  comprehends — demands  another  place  for  exa- 
mination. 


CHAP.  III.'I  LEVANA.  339 

§  115. 

Love  is  an  innate,  but  variously  apportioned,  power 
and  warmth  of  the  heart ;  there  are  cold  and  warm  blooded 
souls  as  well  as  bodies.  Many  are  born  knights  of  the 
Love  of  their  neighbour,*  as  Montaigne ;  many  are  armed 
neutrals  against  humanity  Whether  this  power  be  a 
holy  burning  bush,  or  only  a  single  kindling  spark,  edu- 
cation  must  care  for  it  in  two  ways,  by  protecting  and  by 
developing  it. 

By  protecting  it  I  mean  this.  The  child  begins  with 
selfishness  which  affects  us  as  little  as  that  of  animals ; 
because  the  soul,  darkly  hidden  under  its  various  wants, 
cannot  yet  feel  its  way  to  another,  but  incorporates  others, 
so  to  speak,  with  itself.  In  so  far  the  child  finds  nothing 
lifeless  without,  any  more  than  within,  itself;  it  spreads 
its  soul  as  a  universal  soul  over  every  thing.  A  little 
girl  of  two  years  old — and  all  children  do  the  same — 
personified  other  things  than  those  I  mentioned  in  the 
earlier  part  of  this  work :  she  said,  for  instance,  of  the 
door  which  was  opened,  "  It  wants  to  go  out." — "  I  will 
kiss  my  hand  to  the  spring." — "  Is  the  moon  good  ?  and 
does  it  never  cry  ?  "  This  animation  of  all  lifeless  things, 
which  is  peculiar  to  children,  is  another  reason  why  we 
should  restrain  them  from  ever  harshly  alluding  to  au 
inanimate  object. 

§  116. 

Love  in  the  child,  as  in  the  animal,  exists  as  an  instinct ; 
and  this  central  fire  frequently,  but  not  always,  breaks 
through  its  outer  crust  in  the  form  of  compassion.  A 
child  is  often  indifferent,  not  merely  to  the  sufferings  of 
animals  and  to  those  of  persons  unconnected  with  himselt 
(except  when  the  cry  of  pain  finds  an  echo  in  his  own 
heart),  but  even  to  those  of  relatives.  Innocent  children 
will  frequently  find  pleasure  in  standing  on  the  place 
where  another  is  to  be  punished.  A  second  observation, 
founded  on  experience,  is,  that  boys,  when  approaching 

•  The  order  of  knighthood  to  which  I  allude,  was  founded  by  th« 
(^een  of  Charles  III.  of  Spain. 

2  2 


1340  JEAN  PAUL  FEIEDEICH  EICHTUK.         [FRAG.  VI. 

near  to  manhood,  show  the  least  affection,  the  most  love 
of  teasing,  the  greatest  destnictiveness,  the  most  selfish- 
ness and  cold-heartedness ;  jnst  as  the  coldness  of  the 
night  increases  twofold  shortly  before  the  rising  of  the 
sun. 

But  the  sun  comes,  and  warms  the  world ;  the  super- 
abundance of  power  becomes  love :  the  strong  stem  encloses 
and  protects  the  pith;  the  teasing  lad  becomes  the 
affectionate  young  man.  1'he  other  observation  of  childish 
heartlessness,  recorded  above,  vanishes  in  the  very 
opposite  quality  of  tenderness,  so  soon  as  the  visible  pain 
of  the  culprit,  by  its  increase,  affects  the  child;  every 
fresh  wound  makes  a  tearful  eye. 

Consequently,  there  is  not  so  much  need  to  ingraft  the 
buds  of  affection,  as  to  remc  e  the  moss  and  briars  of 
selfishness  which  hide  them  trom  the  sun.  Every  body 
would  gladly  show  affection,  might  he  or  dared  he  but  do 
it.  Wherever  a  pulse  beats,  a  heart  reposes  in  the  back 
ground ;  if  there  be  but  some  little  impulse  towards  love, 
the  whole  essence  of  love  lies  behind  it. 

But  you  plant  the  selfish  weed,  instead  of  eradicating 
it,  if,  in  the  presence  of  children,  you  pass  contemptuous, 
though  just,  judgments  on  your  neighbours,  or  even  your 
town.  How  else  can  the  child  learn  to  love  the  world 
than  by  learning  to  love  what  is  daily  around  him  ?  And 
can  we  love  what  we  despise  ?  Or  will  your  sermons 
warm  him  into  love  for  the  objects  you  have  taught  him 
to  scorn  ?  Since  every  distinction  of  your  children  above 
their  neighbours,  whether  it  consist  in  position,  behaviour, 
or  even  more  brilliant  insti  uction,  reminds  them  of  them- 
selves at  the  expense  of  others,  this  distinction  very  soon 
and  very  easily  passes  into  hatied.  Never  say  to  your 
children  that  other  children  are  ill  brought-up.  I  have 
frequently  seen  whole  families  converted,  by  similar 
thoughtless  and  perverse  actions,  into  watchful  and 
blockading  troops  of  hatred ;  whole  houses  built  full  of 
pouting  corners,  where  every  child,  full  of  itself,  regarded 
its  own  demands  as  the  weights,  those  of  others  as  the 
goods  to  be  weighed,  and  expected  universal  love  and 
admiratior..  If  a  large  town  have  the  injurious  effect  on 
children's  hearts  of  compelling  them  to  assume  the  neu- 


CHAP,  ni.]  LEVANA.  341 

trail ty  of  great  people,  because  so  many  of  whcm  they 
are  ignorant,  and  to  whom  they  are  indifferent,  constantly 
pass  before  them,  much  more  must  a  village  harm  them 
jf  they  hate  and  despise  as  many  people  as  they  know, 
that  is  to  say,  every  body. 

The  simple  command,  "  Forgive  the  sinner,"  means 
with  children.  Do  not  regard  him  as  one :  you  will 
succeed  better  if  you  teach  them  to  distinguish  the  guilty 
accomplice — self,  from  its  stains ;  to  judge  the  deed,  not 
the  doer  ;  in  order  especially,  by  the  comparison  of  things 
and  rights,  to  prevent,  or  to  exalt,  the  comparison  of 
persons.  Praise  the  action,  not  the  child.  Parents 
mention  their  children  too  often  by  name.  Do  not  say, 
*'  Ah,  the  good  little  Louisa !  "  but  say,  "  That  is  good," — 
or,  at  most,  "  You  are  as  good  as  Mary." 

§  117. 

But  while  setting  forth  the  repression  of  selfishness  as 
the  one  thing  needful  for  exciting  kindliness  to  others, 
we  must  observe — as  is  just — that  love  requires  nothing, 
save  not  to  be  obstructed.  This  leads  us  to  the  second 
means  of  maintaining  and  exciting  love  :  it  is  this — place 
another  being  in  sufficiently  close  and  living  contact  with 
your  child  and  he  will  love  it ;  because  man  is  so  good 
that  the  devil,  so  to  speak,  has  only  carved  and  placed  a 
black  frame  round  the  divine  image.  The  stem  of  the 
individual  heart  nourishes  with  the  same  sap  its  own 
branches  and  those  which  are  ingrafted  on  it. 

The  means  of  exciting  love  consist  in  identifying  the 
child,  as  it  were,  with  the  life  of  others,  and  in  reverence 
for  life  under  every  form. 

Concerning  this  transposition  into  extraneous  life,  by 
which  alone  the  goodness  of  our  nature  can  unfold  all  its 
love,  little  needs  here  be  printed  because  I  have  already 
printed  much  about  it*  Individuals,  yea,  whole  nations, 
have  often  died  without  having  once  even  thought  of 
themselves  in  any  other  position  than  their  own ;  how 
difficult,  then,  must  it  be  for  the  child  to  place  himself  in 

*  la  the  Life  of  SiobenkiM,  Book  L 


342  JEAN  PAUL  FEIEDKICH  KICHTER.         [fEAG.  VI. 

the  position  of  others !  Man  nsually  opens  himself  to  the 
reception  of  another's  nature  only  when,  in  the  contest 
between  two  other  persons,  he  must  transpose  himself 
from  the  one  into  the  other ;  but  not,  when  he  is  a  party- 
concerned  in  the  contest,  by  placing  himself  in  the  position 
of  his  opponent.  Moreover,  this  representative  method 
of  viewing  our  neighbour  is  a  kind  of  intuition,  and, 
consequently,  not  always  in  our  own  power.  I  do  not 
attempt  to  decide  whether  possibly  older  children  may 
not  be  led  to  attain  this  intuitive  perception  at  an  earlier 
period  than  they  else  would  by  certain  games ;  where  one 
child,  for  instance,  assumed  the  name  and  imitated  the 
act'ons  of  another;  or,  by  coloured  pictures  calling  to 
mind  similar  situations.  But  there  is  something  else 
which  may  be  done  to  attain  this  end  with  better  hope  of 
success. 

§  118. 

It  is  this :  Teach  a  child  to  consider  all  animal  life 
sacred — in  short,  give  him  the  heart  of  a  Hindoo,  not  the 
heart  of  a  Cartesian  philosopher. 

I  here  speak  of  something  higher  than  compassion  for 
animals,  though  of  that  also.  Why  has  it  been  long  re- 
marked that  children's  cruelty  to  animals  predicts  cruelty 
to  men,  as  the  Old  Testament  sacrifices  of  beasts  fore- 
shadowed the  New  Testament  sacrifice  of  a  man  ?  It  is 
certain  that,  unless  associated  with  other  things,  the  little 
human  being  can  only  sympathise  with  those  sufferings 
which  speak  in  tones  similar  to  his  own.  Consequently, 
the  unusual  cry  of  a  tortured  animal  sounds  to  him  only 
like  the  strange  and  amusing  howl  of  the  inanimate  wind ; 
but,  as  he  sees  life  and  voluntary  motion,  and  even  attri- 
butes them  to  inanimate  forms,  he  sins  against  life  when 
he  separates  them  as  though  they  were  but  machinery. 
Life  itself  should  be  sacred;  every  life,  irrational  as 
well  as  any  other.  And  does  the  child,  in  fact,  know  of 
different  kinds  of  life?  Or  is  the  heart,  beating  under 
bristles,  feathers,  or  hard  wing-covers,  therefore  any  the 
less  a  heart  ? 

Permit  me  a  few  words  about  the  love  of  animals,  and 
universal  reverence  for  life ! 


CHAP,  ni.J  LEVANA.  343 

Once,  when  man,  a  new  and  fresh  creature,  lived  in  the 
full  world  where  one  stream  flows  into  another,  he  recog- 
nised in  every  thing  the  universal  life  of  the  Godhead, 
resembling  an  infinite  tree  of  life  which  spreads  the  lowest 
insects,  like  roots,  into  the  earth  and  sea,  stands  firm  and 
strong  with  a  trunk  of  huge  powerful  beasts,  shoots  into 
the  air  with  boughs  full  of  waving  leaves,  and  finally  puts 
forth  men, — its  tender  blossoms — towards  the  sky.  Then 
had  not  arisen  that  stupid  human  egotism  which  thinks 
that  the  whole  animal  kingdom,  the  peopled  seas  and  de- 
serts full  of  all  their  various  happy  living  creatures,  were 
given  by  God  to  men  as  tributary  beasts,  Michaelmas  geese 
and  tithe  hens  for  their  stomachs.  The  earth,  Kepler's 
animal,  had  not  yet  become  the  metallic  cow  and  the 
Balaam's  ass  of  little  man.  But  the  old  vanished  world 
— some  remnants  of  which  are  yet  visible  in  eastern  India 
—  finding  more  life  and  more  divinity  in  the  flower,  fast 
chained  by  its  roots,  than  we  now  do  in  the  free-moving 
beast,  worshipped,  in  animal  arabesques,  in  the  living, 
moving,  distorted  images  of  the  human  form,  the  infinite 
Eaffaelle  who  perfected  man.  The  forms  of  animals, 
repulsive  to  us,  revealed  to  them  the  veil  of  Isis,  or  the 
Moses'  covering  of  a  deity.  Hence  the  lower,  but  wonder- 
ful, beast*  was  worshipped  much  sooner  than  the  human 
being ;  hence  the  Egyptians  crowned  human  bodies  with 
the  heads  of  animals.  The  more  childlike,  siniple  and 
pious  a  nation,  the  greater  its  love  of  animals.  In  Surat 
there  is  a  hospital  for  animals.  The  hero  who  had  taken 
Nineveh  saved  it  from  destruction  because  of  the  multitude 
of  its  animals.  The  mercifulness  of  the  Jews  "f  towards 
animals  was  rewarded  with  long  life.  Even  the  punish- 
ment of  animals,  if  they  had  participated  with  men  in  any 
crime,  the  thunders  of  excommunication  hurled  against 
them,  and  the  weighing  of  their  designs  J  in  inflicting 
punishment,  show  the  early  regard  felt  for  these  eighth 
parts,  and  likenesses,  of  man.     The  Indian  adoration  of 

♦  Vide  Meiners.  f  Michaelis,  Mosaic  law,  v.  iii. 

X  An  ox  which,  among  the  Jews  (according  to  tlie  Gemara),  was  put 
to  death  for  killing  a  Jew,  but  left  unhurt  after  killing  three  heathens, 
was  equally  unpunisheil  if  he  aimed  at  goring  a  heatiien  but  killed  a 
Jew. — Mischna,  6.     iJafa  kama,  c.  4. 


344  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   EICHTER.        [fRAG.  VI. 

vegetable  life  passed  into  Greece  under  the  form  of  Hama- 
dryads and  other  deities  dwelling  in  trees,  and  into  the 
north  under  the  form  of  punishment  to  all  who  injured 
trees. 

I  have  often  pictured  to  myself  situations  which  would 
remove  the  common  daily  view  of  animals  which,  like 
mis-shapen  human  bodies,  have  fallen  on  to  our  globe 
from  other  worlds  producing  different  forms.  For  instance ; 
I  have  fancied  an  uninhabited  island  on  which  one  man, 
nourished  only  by  the  bread  fruit  tree,  had  seen  no  living 
thing,  nothing  but  waves  and  sky  and  his  own  reflection 
in  the  water,  and  from  which  he  was  suddenly  transported 
to  a  country  peopled  with  animated  beings. 

What  an  enchanted  island  full  of  embodied  sprites  and 
fairies !  To  the  islander  who  knows  no  other  form  than 
his  own,  a  hairy  monkey  grinning  at  him  from  a  bough 
would  seem  a  wicked  spirit,  or  a  misshapen  man.  The 
elephant  approaches, — a  shapeless,  living  mass ;  a  whole 
family  compressed  into  one  huge  two-eyed  body, — a  walk- 
ing island  of  flesh  :  the  lion  comes  like  anger :  the  horse 
flies  like  victorious  pride :  little  mad  sprites,  red,  green, 
yellow,  and  six  footed,  flutter  about  the  island.  A  glorious 
wonder  drops  from  the  clouds,  in  which  the  two  strong 
useful  human  arms  are  changed  into  burni shed-gold  hair 
or  feathers,  and  its  lips  drawn  out  into  a  horn.  Grey 
shapeless  substances,  with  scarce  formed  limbs,  swim  in 
the  waters  :  yellow  creatures,  like  the  masks  of  the  furies, 
crawl  about  in  the  marshes :  a  single,  long,  smooth  limb 
creeps  up  and  pricks  the  wicked  spirit  on  the  bough,  and 
he  falls  down :  and  then,  when  these  strange  dream-like 
figures  began  to  speak  each  the  language  of  an  unknown 
world — as  we  might  suppose  the  various  nations  of  its 
planets  assembled  in  the  market-place  of  their  sun — hum- 
ming, screaming,  howling,  laughing — there,  on  the  bough 
of  a  tree,  sweet  sounds  from  heaver:,  at  its  root  wrathful 
hissings  from  Erebus :  and  then  the  battles  and  struggles 
of  these  animals,  the  injuries  inflicted  on  them  by  each 
other,  and  yet  their  continued  existence  :  and,  finally,  this 
mingled,  fluttering,  hurting,  killing,  caressing,  repro- 
ducing life  becomes  an  infinite  breath  of  life,  wherein 
the  individual  life  flies  like  a  tiny  zephyrette   .    .        . 


CHAP,  ni.]  LEVANA.  845 

The  one  human  soul  forgets  in  itself  the  human  race  of 
the  past,  the  present  and  the  future,  and  places  itself  as 
the  tirst  figure  before  all  others.  How  much  more  does 
it  forget  the  inferior  race  of  animals,  the  mouches  volantes 
before  an  angel's  eyes  ! 

I'he  so-called  instinct  of  animals  —this  ass  which  per- 
ceives the  angel's  presence  sooner  than  the  prophet — ought 
to  be  regarded  as  the  greatest  miracle  of  creation,  and 
also  as  the  key  and  index  to  all  other  miracles ;  in  so 
much  as  the  riddle  of  the  universe  resembles  those  riddles 
which  both  describe  the  riddle  and  signify  it.  Animals 
should  be  rendered  familiar  to  children  in  every  possible 
way ;  for  instance,  by  representing  them  as  an  anagram 
of  a  human  being  :  thus  the  poor  dog  may  be  regarded  as 
an  old  hairy  man,  whose  mouth  has  become  blackened 
and  elongated,  his  ears  pulled  out,  long  nails  appended  to 
his  shaggy  paws,  and  so  forth.  Little  animals  must  be 
brought  nearer  to  the  eye  and  heart  by  means  of  a 
magnifying  glass.  Thus  we  may  become  the  friends  of 
the  denizens  of  a  leaf.  The  prejudice  which  values  life 
by  the  .yard — why,  then,  are  not  elephants  and  whales 
ranked  higher  than  ourselves? — disappears  by  the  con- 
templation of  the  infinity  which  is  the  same  in  every 
living  creature,  and,  like  an  infinite  series  in  numbers,  is 
increased  by  no  finite  additions ;  which  is  not  afiected,  for 
instance,  by  the  two  million  joints  of  a  centipede,  or  the 
many  thousand  muscles  of  the  willow-caterpillar.  "  How 
you  would  take  care  of  a  butterfly  as  big  as  an  eagle,  or 
of  a  grasshopper  as  large  as  a  horse !  And  are  not  you 
little  too  ?  "     Speak  thus  to  the  child. 

Leibnitz  replaced  a  little  insect  which  he  had  examined 
for  a  long  time  uninjured  on  its  leaf :  be  this  a  command 
for  a  child.  The  Stoic  school  declared  that  a  man  who 
killed  a  bird  without  any  reason  would  just  as  readily  kill 
his  father  :  and  the  Egyptian  priest  considered  it  impious 
to  destroy  any  animal  except  for  sacrifice.  These  embody 
all  the  commandments  of  regard  for  life.  Let  animals  be 
put  to  death  only  from  necessity,  as  sacrifices,  accidentally, 
hastily,  involuntarily,  defensively.  If  the  long  observa- 
tion of  some  animal— say  a  frog — of  its  breathing,  jump- 
ing mode  of  life  and  agonies,  have  converted  this  little 


346  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDEICH   EICHTER.        [fEAG.  VI. 

animal,  previously  indifferent  to  the  child,  into  a  really 
living  thing,  he  would,  by  killing  it,  destroy  with  its  life 
his  reverence  for  all  life.  Hence  no  domestic  animal,  a 
sheep,  a  cow,  should  ever  be  killed  in  a  child's  ])resence  ; 
at  all  events,  if  his  rising  love  of  animals  is  to  be  en- 
couraged instead  of  repressed  (as  some  nations  have  been 
led  to  eat  men  from  eating  monkeys) ;  the  hard  necessity 
of  the  case,  the  careful  tending  previously,  and  the  sudden 
easy  death,  must  be  cast  as  a  veil  of  darkness  over  the 
slaughtering  hand.  Even  a  hunter  should  never  punish 
his  hounds  with  true  hunters'  cruelty  before  a  child, 
especially  because  their  cries  express  their  pain  so  clearly. 
Cooks  say  you  should  show  no  pity  in  killing  an  animal, 
for  else  it  dies  harder :  this  superstition  at  once  reveals 
and  hides  the  true  woman's  sympathy  which  it  forbids. 

To  the  child's  eye  admit  all  living  things  into  the 
human  family ;  so  the  greater  reveals  to  him  the  less. 
Breathe  a  living  soul  into  every  thing ;  and  even  describe 
the  lily,  which  he  wantonly  tears  from  its  organic  exist- 
ence, as  the  daughter  of  a  fair  mother  who  stands  in  the  bed 
and  nourishes  her  little  white  child  with  sap  and  dew. 

I  do  not  refer  to  any  mere  empty  exercise  of  compassion 
in  the  school  of  others'  sufferings,  but  to  an  exercise  of 
religion  in  the  consecration  of  life,  of  the  deity  ever 
present  in  the  trees  and  in  the  human  brain.  The  love  of 
animals,  like  maternal  love,  arises  from  no  expectation 
of  reciprocated  advantage,  still  less  from  selfishness,  and 
has  the  further  advantage  of  always  finding  an  object  on 
which  to  manifest  itself. 

Oh!  the  beautiful  time  will,  must  come,  when  the 
beast-loving  Brahmins  shall  dwell  in  the  cold  north  and 
make  it  warm  ;  when  the  heart,  having  rejected  its  worst 
and  cruellest  sins,  shall  also  lay  aside  those  which  slowly- 
poison  it ;  when  man,  who  now  honours  the  multiform  part 
of  humanity,  shall  also  begin  to  spare,  and  finally  to  pro- 
tect, the  animated  ascending  and  descending  scale  of  living 
creatures,  so  as  no  more  to  offer  to  the  Great  First  Cause 
the  hateful  sight  of  thickly  veiled,  it  is  true,  but  wide- 
extended,  animal  suffering.  And  wherefore  must  such 
times  come  ?  Because  worse  times  have  passed  away : 
time  carries  away  the  national  debts  (mostly  bloody  debts) 


CHAP,  in.]  LEVANA.  347 

of  humanity :  strand-right  is  now  strand-wrong ;  the 
traffic  in  negroes  is  gradually  becoming  unlawful.  Only 
the  toughest,  harshest  barbarism  of  past  ages — war — 
remains  yet  to  be  vanquished  by  our  innate  anti-bar- 
barism. 

§  119. 

The  third  love-potion,  like  the  third  degree  of  compari- 
son which  admits  of  no  more,  is  love  for  love.  If  love  be 
the  highest,  what  further  can  it  seek  than  itself,  the 
highest  ?  A  heart  can  only  be  held  by  a  heart,  the  fairest 
setting  of  the  loveliest  jewel.  Only  the  tumult  and  con- 
fusion in  the  nest  of  self  can  so  darken  us  that  we  value 
pure  love  for  another  less  than  that  for  ourselves. 

But  do  not  attempt  to  found  this  love  in  children  by 
caresses,  the  thirsty  springs  of  love.  These  soon  both 
grow  cold  and  make  cold.  I  have  often  seen  children, 
especially  young  ones,  suddenly  start  away  from  the 
caresses  of  love  to  the  quietest  observation  of  some  mere 
trifle,  just  like  the  old  epic  poets  of  early  nations  in  their 
descriptions.  In  grown-up  persons  that  would  betray  a 
withered  heart  which  in  children  only  shows  that  its 
buds  are  still  closed. 

You  reveal  the  form  of  love  to  a  child  less  by  self- 
sacrificing  actions — for  these  he,  as  yet  unreasoning  and 
selfish,  does  not  regard — than  by  the  mother  tongue  of 
love,  affectionate  words  and  looks.  Love,  to  appear  un- 
troubled, must  be  embodied  in  nothing  save  the  tender 
mimicry  taught  by  Nature  herself:  a  look,  a  word, 
expresses  it  directly,  a  gift  only  indirectly,  by  transla- 
tion. And  just  so  in  marriage:  love  is  not  preserved 
by  gifts,  pleasures  and  sacrifices,  whose  influence  soon 
disappears,  but  by  words  and  looks  of  love.  Moreover, 
children  manifest  more  love  towards  present-giving 
strangers  than  to  present-giving  parents;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  not  so  much  to  caressing  strangers  as  to  caress- 
ing parents. 

Let  the  child  occasionally  see  the  fiery  pillar  of  love 
move  before  strangers.  Contemplation  of  the  mutual 
love  of  others  sanctifies  the  beholder,  because  it  cannot 
be  accompanied  by  selfish  desires.    But  there  is  one  evil 


348  JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRICH  RICHTER.         [fRAG.  VI. 

attending  this  ;  namely,  that  the  undeveloped  hearts  of 
children  either  behold  the  altar  flame  of  others'  love  with 
indifference,  or  frequently,  if  their  parents  kindle  it,  even 
with  jealousy.  But  this  only  teaches  us  that  in  educa- 
tion, as  well  as  in  art,  every  violent  expression,  even  of 
what  is  most  excellent,  must  be  shunned  (because  the 
injudicious  excess  makes  a  durable  impression,  but  the 
beautiful  fugitive  idea  is  lost)  and  that  quietness  and 
gentleness  reflect  the  aftectionate  heart  most  clearly. 
And  I  can  assure  brides,  and  still  more  certainly  bride- 
grooms, that  they  will  only  find  the  children  of  affec- 
tionate patents  affectionate;  and  especially  that  a  kind 
or  an  unkind  father  pr(;pagates  love  or  hatred  in  his 
children. 

If  love  were  not  natural  to  us  we  could  never  hate. 
It  is  true  that  in  us,  as  in  other  animals,  hate  manifests 
itself  earlier,  and  at  first  more  powerfully  than  love. 
This  may  in  part  be  thus  accounted  for :  in  attraction  or 
resemblance  some  portion  of  another's  excellence  is  lost 
to  sight  by  its  mixture  with  our  own,  whereas  the  repul- 
sion of  what  is  dissimilar  at  once  markedly  separates  our 
good  from  others'  evil  qualities ;  the  heart,  full  of  ideal 
light,  feels  the  cold  shadow  of  another's  worthlessness 
more  sensibly  than  the  light  which  is  lost  in  the  blaze  of 
his  own.  But  if  love  be  innate,  and  if  the  heart  be,  as 
Descartes  calls  the  earth,  an  encrusted  sun  (soleil  encroute) 
you  have  but  to  break  away  the  crust  and  the  glowing 
warmth  is  there.  In  other  words,  let  the  child  learn  to 
know  love  by  his  own  actions,  as,  reversedly,  to  under- 
stand your  actions  by  love ;  that  is  to  say,  let  him  do 
something  for  you  so  that  he  may  love  something  ;  for  in 
children  action  awakens  desire,  though  the  opposite  is  the 
case  with  men. 

You  may  teach  a  higher  than  Ovid's  Art  of  Love,  by 
requesting  your  child  to  do  something  without  conmand- 
ing  or  rewarding  performance,  or  punishing  neglect; 
only  depict  beforehand,  if  it  be  for  another,  or  afterwards 
if  for  yourself,  the  pleasure  which  the  little  actor's  atten- 
tion to  your  wish  affords.  You  excite  the  benevolence 
of  children  less  by  pictures  of  people's  necessities  than  of 
the  joy  produced  by  relieving  them.     For  the  little  heai  t 


CHAP.  HI.]  LEV  AN  A.  349 

conceals  so  great  a  treasure  of  love  that  he  is  less  deficient 
in  willingness  to  make  sacrifices  than  in  the  certainty 
that  they  would  give  pleasure.  Hence,  when  children 
have  once  begun  to  make  presents  they  would  never  cease 
giving.  The  parents  may  give  them  the  reward  of  certain 
happiness  by  a  gladly  praising  approval ;  an  educational 
lever  whose  power  has  not  been  sufficiently  estimated. 
For  children,  accustomed  only  to  parental  bidding  and 
forbidding,  are  made  happy  by  permission  to  do  some  extra 
service,  and  by  the  recognition  of  their  having  done  it. 
This  affectionate  acknowledgment  of  pleasure  renders 
them  neither  vain  nor  empty,  but  full ;  not  proud,  but 
warm. 

"It  does  the  poor  man,  or  dog,  or  whatever  it  may  be, 
good,  or  harm ! "  These  few  words,  said  in  a  proper  tone 
of  voice,  are  worth  a  whole  sermon  :  and  fie !  said  to  a 
girl,  will  abundantly  fill  the  place  of  half  a  volume  of 
Ehrenberg's  Lectures  to  the  female  sex. 

Moreover,  the  author  does  not  attempt  to  hide  from  the 
police  that,  in  the  presence  of  his  children,  he  has  fre- 
quently given  to  beggars;  first,  because  the  appearance  of 
cruelty  cannot  be  removed  by  any  political  reasons,  nor  is 
attempted  to  be;  and,  secondly,  because  a  child's  heart, 
excited  by  compassion  for  suff'ering,  should  not  be  chilled. 

Yet  a  few  fiagments  within  the  fragment!  Do  not 
apprehend  too  great  danger  to  the  affections  from  children's 
quarrels.  The  circumscribed  heart  of  children,  their 
incapacity  to  place  themselves  in  another's  position,  and 
their  Adam-like  innocence  of  belief  that  the  whole  world 
is  made  for  them,  not  they  for  the  world ;  all  these  things 
combine  to  raise  the  inflated  bubbles  which  soon  break  of 
themselves.  They  may  speak  harshly,  or  even  fly  into  a 
passion,  with  one  another,  but  must  not  continue  it !  You 
must  do  many  more  things  to  be  hated  than  to  be  loved 
by  children :  hated  parents  must  themselves  have  hated 
for  a  long  time.  Advancing  years  raiely  awaken  a  re- 
pressed or  dormant  love ;  the  individual's  own  selfishness 
doubles  that  of  others,  and  this  again  redoubles  that ; 
and  so  layer  upon  layer  of  ice  is  frozen.  You  falsify 
love  by  commanding  its  outward  expression  ; — kissing  the 
lutDd,  for  instance.     Such  things,  unlike  kind  actions,  are 


S50  JEAN   PAUL  FKIEDKICH  IlICHTER.        [fRAG.  VI. 

not  the  causes,  but  only  the  effects,  of  love.  Do  not  in  any 
instance  require  love  :  among  grown-up  persons  would 
a  declaration  of  affection,  if  commanded  and  prescribed  by 
the  highest  authorities,  be  well  received?  It  may  be 
again  repeated  without  deserving  blame,  that  the  quickest 
alternation  between  punishment  or  refusal  and  previous 
love  is  the  true,  though  (to  the  fair  sex)  a  difficult  art  of 
educating  the  affections.  No  love  is  sweeter  than  that 
which  follows  severity  ;  so  from  the  bitter  olive  is  sweet, 
soft  oil  expressed. 

And,  finally,  ye  parents,  teach  to  love,  and  you  will 
need  no  ten  commandments;  teach  to  love,  and  a  rich, 
winning  life  is  opened  to  jovly  child :  for  man  Cif  this 
simile  be  permitted)  resembles  Austria,  which  increases 
its  territory  by  marriage  but  loses  its  acquisitions  by  war: 
teach  to  love,  in  this  age  which  is  the  winter  of  time,  and 
which  can  more  easil}"  conquer  every  thing  than  a  heart 
by  a  heart ;  teach  to  love,  so  that  when  your  eyes  are  old, 
and  their  sense  almost  extinguished,  you  may  yet  find 
round  your  sick  couch  and  dying  bed  no  greedy,  covetous 
looks,  but  anxious  weeping  eyes,  which  strive  to  warm 
your  freezing  life,  and  lighten  the  darkness  of  your  last 
hour  by  thanks  for  their  first:  teach  to  love,  I  repeat; 
that  means  —do  you  love ! 


CHAPTER  IV. 

SUPPLEMENTARY   APPENDIX   TO   MORAL   EDUCATION. 
§    120. 

What  is  the  third  which  unites  love  and  honour,  which 
does  not  suffer  love  weakly  to  sacrifice  the  sacred  rights 
of  the  individual  soul,  nor  honour  to  disregard  that  of 
others  in  the  cold  contemplation  of  its  own  ? — Religion. 

Since  every  distinguishing  quality  is  again  subdivided, 
we  find  that  the  natural  distinctions  of  the  sexes,  the  one 
inclining  more  to  honour,  the  other  to  love,  are  repeated 
in  the  same  sex.    This  is  a  very  important  point  in  femal© 


CHAP.  IV.]  LEVANA.  351 

education.  One  girl  is  all  quickness  of  perception  and 
action,  full  of  truthfulness  and  impatience,  her  personal 
and  her  public  honour  is  ever  before  her  eyes — forgiving 
only  her  own  severity,  not  that  of  others,  but  even  that 
more  readily  than  any  unworthy  attack  on  her  honour — 
reflecting  on  her  own  worth  rather  than  duly  weighing  it, 
placing  justice  higher  than  love,  and  so  forth.  Another 
girl  is  full  of  affection,  often  even  to  the  prejudice  of  her 
honour,  desirous  of  approbation,  not  proud,  less  obedient 
to  the  dictates  of  propriety  than  to  inclination,  sacrificing 
external  form  to  internal  sentiment,  eager  to  lend  assist- 
ance and  sympathy,  less  truthful  than  patient,  and  so 
forth.  A  perfect  soul  is  to  be  formed  from  the  union  of 
tliese  two.  Hardness  of  character  in  a  woman  is  more 
easily  corrected  than  want  of  honour  in  a  man :  a  woman's 
want  of  honour  is  as  difficult  to  correct  as  a  man's  harsh- 
ness. A  boy  utterly  without  honour,  and  a  girl  without 
love,  deserve  nothing  else  at  the  end  of  ten  years  than 
to  be  married  to  each  other.  The  female  sex,  however, 
resembles  the  ocean,  or  water  in  general,  which  contains 
both  greater  and  smaller  beasts  than  the  firm  land. 

Since  a  theory  of  education  is  a  moral  science  of  food 
(dietetics)  but  not  a  science  of  healing,  receipts  against 
anger,  selfishness,  &c.,  find  no  place  in  my  treatise,  though 
they  are,  indeed,  implied  in  what  has  gone  before.  And, 
truly,  what  a  work  of  giant  folios  must  be  written  to 
embrace  a  description  of  all  the  diseases,  and  all  the 
remedies  for  the  million  shades  of  disease,  which  the 
jombinations  of  different  characters  and  years,  various 
degrees  of  activity,  and  external  circumstances  can 
produce ! 

The  technical  part  of  morality,  such  as  order,  clean- 
liness, politeness,  has  already  found  teachers  in  larger 
books  than  this. 

It.  is  well  that  a  treatise  on  education  be  occasionally 
written  in  pamphlet-form,  and  completed  in  three  little 
volumes.  Long  talking  begets  short  hearing,  for  people 
go  away.  An  educational  library — unless,  indeed,  a 
pocket  library  be  invented — would  soon  cause  men  to 
attend  to  the  first  plan  which  offered  itself,  rather  than 
be  at  the  trouble  of  reading  a  whole  host  of  books. 


352  JEAN   PAUL  FRIEDRICH  RICHTER.       [fRAG.  \X 


§   121. 

But  a  few  more  paragraphs  may  be  added  without  too 
much  endangering  the  smallness  of  the  book,  or  the 
facility  of  reading  it. 

Would  you  devote  hours  to  moral  instruction?  I  would 
rather  recommend  years,  and  a  never-ending  course  of 
that  study.  No  lesson  here  avails  but  that  founded  on 
living  facts,  and  even  it  is  but  as  one  incident  in  a  fable. 
Advancing  life  is  a  perpetual  preacher,  home  a  domestic 
chaplain,  and,  instead  of  morning  and  evening  prayers, 
life-long  prayers  must  exert  their  influence.  Sciences  can 
be  taught ;  so  in  them  you  may  give  lessons :  genius  can 
only  be  aroused ;  provide  it,  then,  with  motives  and  oppor- 
tunities. Can  the  heart  of  a  corpse  send  forth  living 
blood?— The  heart  is  the  genius  of  virtue;  morality  its 
theory  of  assthetics.  If  you  wish  any  thing  to  be  forgotten, 
write  it  on  the  inner  side  of  the  study  door ;  if  you  want 
to  desecrate  the  holy,  hang  a  table  of  commandments  per- 
petually before  the  eyes.  Lavater  said,  "  Every  man  has 
his  devil's  moments."  Consequently  be  not  lost  in  sur- 
prise if  the  child  also  have  his  Satan's  seconds  as  well  as 
angel's  minutes.  Eather  despair  of  grown  men  than  of 
children.  For  these  confuse  you  so  much  by  the  beautiful 
revelation  of  all  their  feelings  and  desires,  and  by  their  un- 
premeditated echo  of  all  sounds,  that  the  key-note  remains 
unknown  to  you.  With  the  former,  on  the  contrary,  one 
treble-discord  presupposes  an  instrument  thoroughly  out 
of  tune.  And  yet  again  :  if  a  man  be  so  unfathomable  to 
a  man,  how  much  more  so  must  his  unequal,  a  child,  be 
which  not  merely  conceals  its  fruit  in  its  leaves,  but  those 
in  their  buds,  and  within  them  the  flowers.  Hence  when 
new  and  necessary  developments  take  place,  even  though 
they  be  for  the  worse,  do  not  blame  previous  innocent 
mistakes  in  the  plan  of  education.  For  instance;  how- 
ever much  you  endeavour  to  conceal  and  repress  the  long 
dormant  sexual  instinct  it  will  yet  finally  start  up  armed 
where  you  least  expect  it,  like  Minerva  from  the  head  of 
Jupiter. 

I  think  that  we  parents,  especially  we  modern  parents, 


CflAP.  IV.]  LEVANA.  353 

separate  our  children  too  anxiously  from  other  children ; 
as  gardeners  do  flowers  to  preserve  the  pollen  unmixed. 
Can  we  very  highly  value  any  good  or  lovely  thing  which 
withers  at  the  slightest  touch  ?  If  we  have  educated  truly 
and  implanted  right  principles  in  a  child  until  his  sixth 
year  a  few  bad  examples  will  not  so  much  drive  away 
what  is  good  as  fan  it  into  new  life :  if  the  water  in  the 
tea-urn  be  really  boiling  a  little  spirit  flame  will  keep  it 
BO  all  tea-time.  Not  the  badness,  but  the  long  continuance, 
of  examples  injures  children.  And,  again,  the  examples 
of  strange  children  and  indifferent  people  have  less  effect 
than  those  of  the  persons  they  most  respect,  —  their 
parents  and  teachers ;  because  the  latter,  like  the  external 
conscience  of  children,  so  break  or  darken  their  internal 
conscience,  that  the  devil  finds  it  prepared  for  his 
residence. 

Yes,  I  go  still  further,  and  declare  the  preponderating 
influence  of  a  good  example  over  a  bad  one — or  the  victory 
of  the  angel  Michael  over  the  devil — to  be  so  great  that  I 
believe  the  poor  children  of  a  thoroughly  unmarriage-like 
union,  where  one  parent  is  the  ally  of  the  devil  and  the 
other  of  the  angel,  will  be  gathered  hardly,  and  at  great 
cost,  but  all  the  more  certainly  under  the  white  flag. 

The  younger  the  children  are  the  more  rapidly  may 
we  pass  before  them  from  jest  to  earnest ;  for  they  do  so 
themselves.  All  their  modes  of  going  from  one  thing  to 
another  are  leaps.  How  quickly  they  forget  and  forgive  ! 
Then  do  so  to  them,  especially  in  cases  of  punishment ; 
and  always  inflict  short  punishments,  so  that  they  may 
never  be  thought  unfounded  and  unjust.  God  be  thanked 
for  the  memory  of  children  which  is  less  retentive  of 
sorrows  than  of  joys !  Else  what  a  prickly  chain,  formed 
by  the  uninterrupted  series  of  punishments,  would  sur- 
round these  little  beings !  But  children  are  capable  of 
being  delighted  twenty  times  even  on  the  worst  of  days. 
It  is  as  difficult  to  arouse  them  from  their  sweet  god- 
like slumber  by  domestic  or  European  wars,  as  to  awaken 
flowers  out  of  their  sleep  by  noise  and  motion.  God  grant 
the  dear  little  ones  may  awake,  like  the  flowers,  to  feel 
the  aunshine  and  behold  the  day ! 

There  are  confused,  obstinate  hours  in  which  the  child 
I.  2  a 


354  JEAN   PAUL   FEIEDKIOH   RICHTEK.       [fRAG.  VI. 

positively  cannot  pronounce  certain  words,  nor  ob^y  certain 
commands  :  but  he  will  do  so  the  next  hour.  Do  not 
consider  this  as  stubbornness.  I  know  men  who  have 
laboured  for  years  to  get  rid  of  some  expression  of  the 
face,  mode  of  writing,  or  odd  word  to  which  they  have 
become  habituated,  without  any  particular  result.  Apply 
this  to  children,  who  are  often  commanded  to  abandon 
some  thousand  habits  at  once,  and  do  not  exclaim  so 
bitterly  against  their  disobedience,  which  is  often  nothing 
but  the  impossibility  of  an  overburdened  attention. 

The  fruits  of  the  right  education  of  the  first  three  years 
(a  higher  triennium  than  the  academic)  cannot  be  reaped 
during  the  sowing ; — and  you  will  often  be  unable  to 
understand  why,  after  doing  so  much,  so  much  still 
remains  to  be  done; — but  in  a  few  years  the  growing 
harvest  will  surprise  and  reward  you, ;  for  the  numerous 
earthy  crusts  which  covered  the  flower-shoots,  but  did 
not  crush  them,  have  at  last  burst  before  them. 

§  122. 

Physical  nature  makes  many  little  steps  before  taking  a 
leap,  and  then  begins  the  same  process  over  again :  the 
law  of  continuity  is  animated  by  the  law  of  advancing 
and  retreating  efforts.  We  find  the  last  law  most  strongly 
expressed  in  the  leap  to  sexual  power ;  but  of  these  leaps, 
like  the  bud  or  knot-severances  of  the  shooting  stalk,  there 
are  many  more ;  and  for  the  most  part  they  are  closely 
collected  round  about  the  embryo;  even  as  failing  age 
sets  them  at  wide  intervals  one  from  the  other.  The  leap 
from  the  Graafian  vesicles  into  the  uterus — the  settling: 
of  the  head  before  the  birth — the  entry  into  the  atmo- 
sphere of  earth — the  first  milk — the  teething— the  grow-, 
ing-fever,  and  so  on,  are  my  evidences.  ISo,  in  old  age, 
the  feeble  copy  of  childhood,  nature  has  sometimes  re- 
commenced her  sudden  efforts  of  power  in  pushing  forth 
teeth,  hair,  &c. 

P>ut  the  mind  must  always  be  the  companion  .of  the 
body ;  it  is  the  strophe,  the  other  the  antistrophe,  though 
occasionally  their  positions  are  reversed.  'J'he  heavy, 
cloud?  of  the  body  must  break  in  thunder  showers;  the 


CHAP.  IV.]  LEVANA.  355 

growth  of  the  physical  powers  must  produce  growth  in 
the  mental  powers  also ;  and  they,  again,  necessitate  the 
former.  But  then  the  teacher  stands  petrified  to  behold 
a  new  inimical — really  friendly — division  in  the  child's 
nature,  and  believes  the  former  world  to  have  vani:shed 
because  a  new  world  has  sprung  into  existence.  Accus- 
tomed to  the  old,  he  would  rather  see  the  child's  growth  a 
mere  growing  old ;  in  short,  he  would  wish  it  to  be  always 
the  same,  or,  at  most,  to  exhibit  no  greater  change  than  that 
from  the  print  to  the  coloured  painting  : — the  child  must 
not  drop  his  first  seed-leaves  in  the  beams  of  the  sharp- 
cutting  world,  but  yet. must  push  forth  new  growing 
leaves.  But  since  this  can  never  be  ;  since  every  applica- 
tion of  the  flute  to  the  lipS  produces  a  new  incorporeal 
sound,  the  teacher  ought  to  be  of  good  courage  and  only 
say,  "  The  parts  developed  last  must  grow  upon  the  first, 
and  why  need  I  fear  for  these  if  there  be  nothing  I  would 
wish  to  recall  in  the  others  ?  " 


§  123. 

Parents  possess  a  very  easy  and  excellent  means  of 
preaching,  and  at  the  same  time  interesting  and  improving 
their  children,  by  relating  to  them  how  they  passed  their 
own  childhood  with  their  parents.  Independent  of  all 
other  considerations,  whatever  is  little  is,  on  that  very 
account,  most  pleasing  to  a  child,  himself  a  little  thing ; 
the  author's  children  have  sometimes  begged  him  for  a 
little  sea,  nay,  even  for  a  little  God.*  Now  if  the  father 
or  mother  will  descend  from  their  lofty  height  and  speak 
of  themselves,  the  parents,  as  having  once  been  children, 
the  little  people  can  scarcely  comprehend  it,  and  look, 
with  the  anxious  desire  of  learning,  into  the  diminishing 
i'las.s  in  which  their  present  giant-parents  move  about  as 
1  ittle  children.  There  they  see  grand-parents  now  command 
little  parents,  and  the  very  people  obey  whom  now  the 

♦  Perhaps  this — apart  from  Love,  which  likes  to  express  itself  with 
tender  diminutives— is  one  reason  more  why  nurses,  &c.,  make  pet- 
names  for  over)'  thing  for  children,  even  to  excess;  and  in  fact  for  all 
parts  of  speech,  e.g.  sch^nde  instead  of  iohOn  (pretty),  oven  »o'chejt  foi 
»o    indeed). 

2  A  2 


356  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDKICH   RICHTER.        f  FRAG.  VI. 

child  has  to  obey.  In  this  relation  he  will  only  discover 
the  continuation  of  a  previously  acquired  right,  not  of  a 
mere  accident ; — here  he  finds  that  his  father  commands 
now  what  formerly,  when  a  child,  he  obeyed;  that  he 
dearly  loved,  and  was  dearly  loved  by  his  parents,  in 
whose  breast  the  little  grandchild  now  nestles  all  the  more 
closely  and  warmly  from  the  recollection  of  former  love. 
Since  the  history  of  his  parents'  childhood  must  have  such 
fresh  and  unceasing  interest  for  the  child,  how  great  a 
weight  and  charm  may  there  not  be  given  by  means  of  this 
interest  to  every  word,  every  instruction  and,  in  short,  to 
every  thing  embraced  in  that  relation  ?  If  it  chance  that 
parents,  thus  describing  their  own  life,  were  brought  up 
as  children  in  other  circumstances,  in  other  dwelling- 
places,  the  seed-field  of  instruction  is  vastly  extended. 
In  short,  parents  in  relating  the  incidents  of  their  own 
childhood  simply  and  truly  may  lay  seeds  which  in  the 
warm  soil  of  their  children's  childhood  will  grow  and 
bear  fruit.  Even  the  little  faults  of  their  parents,  and 
the  consequent  punishments  of  the  grand- parents,  will 
not  in  relation  lessen  the  children's  reverence  for  their 
parents,  unless  its  foundation  be  grievously  hollow,  and 
the  superstructure  most  poorly  built. 

We  have  here  approached  so  very  near  the  question, 
What  is  the  best  kind  of  stories  for  children?  that  we 
may  as  well  reply  to  it  forthwith.  Oriental  and  romantic 
tales  seem  the  most  suitable  ;  such  as  many  of  the  Arabian 
Nights'  Entertainment,  Herder's  Palm  Leaves  and  Krum- 
macher's  Parables.  Children  are  little  Orientals.  Dazzle 
them  with  the  wide  plains  of  the  east,  with  brillant  dew- 
drops  and  bright  tinted  flowers.  Give  them,  at  least  in 
stories,  the  impulse  which  shall  carry  them  over  our  cold 
northern  rocks  and  North  Capes  into  the  warm  gardens  of 
the  south.  Let  your  first  miracle  be,  like  Christ's,  a  turn- 
ing of  water  into  wine,  of  fact  into  poetry.  Therefore  do 
not  shut  up  every  thing  you  permit  to  approach  your  child 
in  a  pulpit  with  a  sermon  before  it,  nor  suffer  that  morbid 
seeking  after  "  the  moral "  which  deforms  most  printed 
children's  tales,  and  by  which,  precisely  when  they  are  on 
the  way  to  the  highest,  they  lose  the  path ;  just  as  Charles 
XII.  of  Sweden  generally  lost  at  chess  because  he  moved 


CHAP.  IV.]  LEV  ANA.  357 

out  his  king.  Every  good  tale,  like  every  good  poem,  is 
necessarily  surrounded  with  instruction.  But  the  im- 
portant thing  is — to  paint  a  romantic  morning-glow  on 
the  earth-kissing  sky  which,  as  age  advances,  may  deepen 
into  a  pure  evening-red.  Tell  of  terrible  wild  beasts,  but 
let  them  be  always  at  last  overcome — (still  let  children  be 
the  most  frequent  actors  on  your  stage) — also  of  long 
caverns  which  lead  to  heavenly  gardens — of  being  happy, 
and  of  making  happy — of  great  dangers,  and  still  more 
wonderful  deliverances — and  even  the  strange  adventures 
of  mischievous  children ;  but  always  remember  in  your 
tales  that  tears  are  sooner  drawn  from  children  than  smiles. 
For  instance,  the  author  has  frequently  carried  this  so  far  as 
to  represent  the  infant  Christ*  (he  never  even  mentioned 
a  Rupert*)  seated  on  the  moon,  surrounded  with  none  but 
good  children ;  and  the  evening  glow  in  the  December  sky 
he  could  only  account  for  by  supposing  it  the  reflection  of 
the  carriages  full  of  Christmas  gifts.  In  after  years,  when 
the  children  gaze  upon  the  moon  and  the  redness  of  the 
evening  sky,  a  wonderful  delight  will  gently  fill  their 
souls,  and  they  will  not  know  what  strange  ethereal  air 
they  breathe :  The  morning  breeze  of  your  childhood  fans 
you,  my  children ! 

These  fictions,  when  translated  into  reality,  lead  to  no 
accusations  of  parental  untruthfulness,  as  our  own  ex- 
amplesf  and  those  of  our  forefathers,  else  grounded  fast 
in  truth,  abundantly  prove. 

And  after  all  this,  shall  not  the  freedom  which  mak.d 
children  citizens  of  the  divine  city  of  romance  not  open  for 
them  the  theatre  :  I  do  not  mean  that  where  comedies  and 
tragedies  are  played,  which  only  stun,  excite,  or  deceive 
them,  nor  yet  the  little  stage  where  they  are  themselves 
the  actors — but  the  opera-house  ?  Does  not  the  opera  reveal 
romantic  fairy-land  to  their  eyes,   and   yet,  by  the  im- 

•  Vide  previous  notes. 

t  The  rosy  pictures  yet  bloom  in  the  author's  heart  which  his  father 
once  painted  there,  on  coming  out  of  the  study  iuU)  tlie  December 
twilight,  with  the  insignificant  words,  he  had  seun  the  infant  Clirist 
with  golden  beams  pass  through  the  dark  night  clouds.  Who  now 
could  replace  for  him  this  ro:iy  blessed  beam,  this  heavenly  treasuta 
still  shining  in  the  clouds  ? 


358  JEAN   PAUL   FEIEDEICH   RICHTEK.       [fRAG.  VI» 

possibility  of  understanding  the  singing,  which  throws  a 
wholesome  darkness  over  the  intrigue,  preserve  their  ears 
from  every  moral  taint  ?  And  does  not  what  is  glaringly 
low  in  close  connection  with  what  is  noble  (as,  for  instance, 
in  the  Zauberflote),  like  the  nnion  of  a  monkey  and  a  nun, 
strengthen  the  love  for  excellence  and  the  detestation  of 
depravity  ?  It  seems  to  me  that  the  opera,  this  acting, 
living  fairy-tale,  which  the  music  makes  metrical  and  the 
brillant  scenery  romantic,  might  change  the  heavy  plough- 
like motion  and  creaking  of  the  present  into  smooth  flying, 
and  is  all  the  more  necessary  because  prose  may  be  taught 
but  not  poetry,  and  wings  can  more  easily  find  feet  than 
feet  wings.  At  the  same  time,  these  suggestions  are 
offered  rather  interrogatively  than  affirmatively ;  since 
Aou  may  venture  every  thing  and  replace  every  thing 
more  easily  than  a  child's  innocence. 

§  124. 

1  would  wish  to  say  a  few  words  about  long  journeys 
for  children.  Short  ones  of  a  few  weeks  are  with  justice 
considered  to  be  physically  and  mentally  improving  trans- 
plantings  of  these  young  trees;  because  the  exchange  of 
their  old  dull  corner  for  the  wide  airy  landscape  full 
of  different  people  and  new  customs  must  necessarily 
enliven  and  improve  them.  But  something  very  dif- 
ferent are  children's  travels  with  town-dwellers  and  land- 
scourers,  who  make  the  grand  tour  of  half  Europe — (sm 
expedition  through  his  native  town  is  one  to  a  child) — 
during  which  the  daily  transplanted  tree  is  merely  ex- 
hausted. If  even  grown-up  people  bring  back  from 
their  journeys  round  the  world  full  heads  and  empty 
hearts ;  because  daily  walks  through  streets  full  of  men 
only  presenting  the  gauntlet,  or,  at  all  events,  never 
oti'ering  a  brother's  kiss,  must  at  last  make  the  heart 
as  cold  as  life  at  court  does,  where,  as  in  a  country 
dance,  the  dancer  goes  down  the  middle  and  up  again 
givini!:  his  hand  indifferently  to  all ;  how  much  must 
early  long  journeys — bringing  only  the  ripeness  of  autumn 
to  matured  men — destroy  a  child  by  producing  such 
ripeness  in  spring.     Living  long  in  close  connection  with 


CHAP.  IV.J  LEVANa.  359 

the  same  people  cherishes  in  children  the  warmth  of  thL> 
affections.  The  uniforai  sameness  of  people,  dwelling-, 
play-gi  ounds,  and  even  domestic  furniture,  hangs  lovingly 
on  a  child,  and  strengthens  thtt  magnetic  attraction,  as  a 
weight  does  suspended  from  a  magnet:  and  thus  in  the 
spring-time  of  life  is  prepared  the  rich  magnetic  burst  of 
the  future  aftectiou&,  "because  the  child  naturally  learns  to 
love  what  he  daily  sees— an  easy  matter  in  a  village — the 
hewer  of  wood  for  the  family,  the  woman  carrier,  old  Peter, 
who  comes  every  Saturday  to  beg  for  Sunday ;  yes,  even 
the  more  distinguished  persons  of  his  acquaintance  who 
live  far  away.  With  a  childhood  full  of  affection  we  may 
endure  half  a  life  iu  the  cold  world.  If,  now,  instead  of 
such  environments,  a  child  be  taken  oa  long  journeys — say 
half  over  Europe — and  must,  since  it  is  impossible  to  pack 
up  market-places  with  their  inhabitants  in  the  carriage  or 
to  crowd  them  into  the  hotels  of  large  cities,  every  day  fall 
upon  new  people,  new  rooms,  new  servants,  new  j^uests, 
towards  whom  it  is  impossible,  from  mere  lack  of  time,  for 
the  young  heart  to  experience  any  burst  of  sympathy : — 
what,  then,  can  grow  out  of  this  little  creature?  A 
courtier  without  a  court,  cool,  polite,  elegant,  languid, 
ennaye,  sweet  and  pretty. 

§125. 

Since  in  appendices,  as  in  prefaces,  things  may  be  re- 
peated which  are  contained  in  the  book,  I  say  again,  Let 
there  be  rules  for  children;  it  is  immaterial  what,  but 
only  us  the  centre  of  innumerable  rays  I  Law  is 
unity,  unity  is  deity.  The  devil  only  is  changeable. 
Unity  of  rule  at  once  strengthens  and  controls  both  tbe  too 
delicately  sensitive  girl  and  the  rough  active  boy ;  for  the 
very  same  reason  that  we  patiently  endure  the  discomfort 
of  frost  and  the  unbroken  desolateness  of  the  earth  in 
winter,  whereas  a  few  snow-flakes  in  spring  make  us  angry 
and  gloomy  :  only  because  m  winter  the  white  enamel  of 
snow,  is  the  rule,  but  in  spring  the  various  tinted  floweis. 
No  fcommand  seems  harsher  than  the  new  one ;  no  necessity 
than  that  which  is  freshly  imposed.  If  you  would  picture 
toi  yourself  the  most  unhappy  and   most  unf:>rtunately 


360  JEAN  PAUL  FBIEDEICH  RICHTER.      [fRAG.  VL 

circumstanced  child,  think  of  one  who  has  been  brought 
up  by  chance  merely,  without  rule,  irritated  and  appeased 
without  reason — destitute  of  confidence  in  the  future — 
finding  in  every  minute  a  driving  storm — wishing  nothing 
else  than  the  fulfilment  of  his  momentary  desires — a  ball 
thrown  sportively  from  love  to  hate — with  sorrows  that 
bring  no  strength,  and  joys  which  produce  no  love. 
Happily  I  see  no  such  being  near  me!  Have  not  even 
unjust  rules  a  beneficial  tendency  in  producing  obedience 
to  rule?  When  punishments  were  attached  to  the  un- 
intentional dropping  of  the  hat,  or  even  falling  in  riding 
through  the  streets  of  a  town,  both  happened  much  more 
rarely  :  and  in  brotherhoods  or  sisterhoods  where  every 
snorer  is  awakened  no  one  snores  :  and  where  punishment 
is  threatened  even  for  the  accidental  breaking  of  china  less 
is  broken.  But  the  threatening  must  be  a  year  older  than 
the  fault  or  the  punishment,  else  the  rule  fails. 

§  126. 

Give  reasons  for  your  requests  more  readily,  and  even 
at  an  earlier  period,  than  reasons  for  your  assertions :  in 
the  first  place,  it  is  easier  to  teach  obedience  than  under- 
standing ;  in  the  second,  a  child's  tnist  must  never  be 
weakened  by  reasons  which  only  lead  to  doubt;  in  the 
third,  action  requires  external  quickness,  belief  demands 
time ;  and,  in  the  fourth,  the  former  is  usually  more  opposed 
to  previous  wishes  than  the  latter  (for  children  are  seldom 
orthodox)  :  at  the  same  time  that  you  smooth  the  way  for 
your  commands,  as  the  French  kings  did,  by  gentle  reasons, 
insist,  like  them,  on  obedience,  if  the  reasons  do  not  induce 
it.  In  a  second  edition  of  these  rules,  even  as  to  giving 
reasons  for  commands,  we  find  that  the  line  must  be  drawn 
still  tighter.  Mothers,  partly  from  kindness,  partly  from 
an  inherent  love  of  the  healthy  movement  of  the  tongue, 
give  as  many  reasons  for  their  orders  as  may  overcome 
the  opposing  arguments  of  the  child  ;  and,  if  at  last  they 
should  be  unable  to  produce  more,  finish  by  asserting  their 
authority.  It  were  better  to  have  begun  with  it.  And 
certainly,  after  compliance,  the  reasons  will  find  readier 
admittance  into  the  open  impartial  ears.  This  is  mowt 
markedly    the    case    in     the    earliest    jears;  each    ad- 


CHAP.  IV.]  LEVANA.  361 

vancing  year  requires  an  additional  reason.  The  united 
care  both  for  a  child's  obedience  and  fi  eedom  is  one  of  the 
most  diffictilt  requirements  of  education.  The  parental 
breath  must  only  move  the  branch  towards  the  fructifying 
pollen,  but  not  bend  or  break  the  trunk. 

§127. 

Teachers  generally  desire  an  appendix  to  the  chapter  on 
moral  education  containing  a  treatise  on  the  prevention  of 
sensual  faults.  Why  do  we  find  no  such  lamentations 
and  remedies  among  the  ancients  or  in  the  middle  ages  ? 
Adults  in  those  days  were  different  from  those  of  present 
times  in  this,  that  the  latter  by  reason  of  their  peniten- 
tial straw-crowns  become  bald  sooner  than  grey,  but  the 
former  the  reverse — the  pagan  and  catholic  priesthood 
were  a  committee  of  uncleanness;— and  the  pure  vestal 
virgins  of  the  Romans  had  to  make  offerings  to  Priapus 
as  well  as  to  Vesta,  predecessors  as  it  were  of  the  self- 
offering  nuns  before  the  Reformation.  Must  we  suppose 
that  the  youth  of  those  periods  was  better  than  the  present? 
Scarcely  so.  Vogel  reckons  amongst  the  incitements  to 
secret  sins  eating  of  meat,  solid  food,  spices,  warm  rooms, 
beds  and  clothing,  and  the  swaddling  of  children  : — but 
did  not  the  middle  ages  take  such  means  of  pleasure  in 
still  greater  measure  :  for  instance,  the  spices,  the  fourfold 
stronger  beer,  the  thicker  beds,  &c.  ? — Even  rude  health 
and  rough  work  do  not  forearm  peasant  children  (as  he 
who  understands,  if  not  he  who  instructs  the  people  well 
knows)  against  this  youth- cancer.  The  reason  why  so 
much  more  is  said  and  taught  about  such  matters  now — 
always  remembering  also  that  books  are  now  made  and  a 
book-trade  established  about  every  action — can  only  lie  in 
this,  that  in  the  healthful  past,  as  now  among  the  vigo- 
rous commonalty  or  unrestrained  animals,  many  ill-regu- 
lated actions  passed  unpunished  because  the  fortifications 
of  these  unpolished  times  were  not  so  easily  demolished. 
But,  at  all  events,  the  morbid,  sickly  imagination  attend- 
ant on  civilisation  is  quite  as  much  cause  as  effect ;  to 
which  must  be  added  the  acceleration  of  maturity  duo  to 
larger  towns  and  better  warmed  countries. 

Luther    says,    CknUemptus  frangit    diabolumj    obaervatio 


362      JEAN  PAUL  FEIEDRICH  RICHTEE.    FEAG.  VL 

inftal  ;*  which  means,  that  to  combat  sin  you  must  know 
it,  and  that  is  in  itself  a  kind  of  defeat.  A  feeling  of 
shame  artificially  taught  before  duly  awakened  by  nature, 
is  a  sewing  together  of  the  fig-leaves  conducting  to  the  fall 
which  in  Eden  they  only  covered.  The  modesty  which 
naturall}'-  arises  at  a  later  period  is  like  the  fig-tree  itself, 
which  only  hides  under  its  leaves  the  uniipe  fruit  which 
contains  no  poison. 

Many  persons  even  say  that  a  child  should  learn  to  be 
ashamed  of  seeing  himself.  Himself!  Gracious  heaven! 
how  much  must  the  young  mind  have  been  poisoned  before 
it  would  blush  at  the  form  it  cannot  change  and  did  not 
choose  ?  before,  in  fact  it  would  blush  at  its  Creator  ?  To 
insure  modesty  I  would  advise  the  educating  of  the  sexes 
together ;  for  two  boys  will  preserve  twelve  girls,  or  two 
girls  twelve  boys,  innocent  amidst  winks,  jokes  and  im- 
proprieties, merely  by  that  instinctive  sense  which  is  the 
forerunner  of  matured  modesty.  But  I  will  guarantee 
nothing  in  a  school  where  girls  are  alone  together,  and 
still  less  where  boys  are.  Boys  do  harm  to  boys  far  more 
•than  girls  to  girls ;  for  they  are  bolder,  opener,  rougher, 
more  sociable,  more  curious  about  matters,  as  girls  are 
about  persons. 

'I'he  imaginary  walls  and  glass  bed-screens  which 
teachers  put  before  the  mental  eyes  of  children  are  part 
of  the  mistaken  instruction  in  modesty ;  a  kind  of  incom- 
prehensible covering  of  a  cover,  the  sheep's  clothing  of  a 

sheep.     He  who  admits  that  he  has  a  secret  to  keep 

has,  by  doing  so,  revealed  one  half  of  it,  and  the  other 
will  speedily  follow.  Children's  questions  about  birth—- 
about  where  a  little  baby  comes  from  —  show  nothing  what- 
ever more  than  a  blameless  desire  of  knowing  and  asking 
about  strange  things.  A  child's  questions  about  his 
mother's  confinement  have  no  more  connection  with  sex- 
instinct  than  his  asking  why  the  sun,  which  goes  to  bed 
in  the  west,  lises  in  the  east.  But  if  those  about  him 
attach  a  foolish  mystification  to  the  event,  instinct,  which 
lies  in  the  back  ground,  united  with  accidental  expressions 
which  he  will  treasure  up,  will  prematurely  clear  away 
the  darkness.  To  this  really  injurious  secrecy  belong  such 
*  Contempt  vanquisbetii  the  devil ;  inspectioA  puffeth  him  up. 


LJHA.P.  IV.]  LEV  AN  A.  363 

expressions  as,  "  This  is  only  for  grown  up-people,"  or, 
"  When  you  are  older,  you  will  know  all  about  it,"  &c. 
Secret  articles  always  give  rise  to  war;  and  secret  alli- 
ance with  sin  is  not  very  far  from  secret  instructions 
of  this  kind. 

But  how  is  the  questioning  child  to  be  answered  ? 
With  as  much  truth  as  he  wants :  "  As  the  little  grub 
grows  inside  the  nut,  so  the  little  infant  grows  within 
its  mother  and  is  nourished  by  her  flesh  and  blood  ;  hence 
she  is  ill,"  &c.  Since  children  understand  ten  times  less 
of  what  is  said  than  we  suppose  and,  like  grown-up 
people,  ask  a  thousand  times  less  about  the  final  when 
they  know  the  secondary  cause,  it  will  probably  be  several 
years  before  the  child  again  asks  whence  the  little  crea- 
ture comes.  Then  give  him  this  answer :  "  From  the 
great  God,  who  sends  these  little  babies  to  married  people 
who  sleep  together."  We  grown-up  philosophers  know 
nothing  more  about  it;  and  you  say  with  perfect  truth  to 
the  child,  "  A  human  being  can  carve  a  statue,  or  em- 
broider a  flower,  but  he  can  make  no  living  thing :  that 
grows."  And  so,  by  help  of  the  pure  word  sleep,*  children 
receive  from  the  greatest  incomprehensibility  no  more 
defilement  or  disclosure  than  the  edifices  of  phj^siologic- 
lore  have  heretofore  afforded  us ;  to  which,  howbeit,  the 
sharp-  and  deep-  and  many-minded  Okeu  f  has  constructed 

*  J.  B.  Heidegger,  Burgomaster  in  Zurich,  from  the  time  that  as  a 
boy  he  heard  of  the  sin  of  sleeping  with  a  woman,  used,  as  he  lay  near 
his  nurse,  to  keep  his  eyes  open  the  niglit  through.  {Bauer's  Gallery 
of  Hist.  Pictures,  v.  2.) 

t  *'  Die  Zeugung,"  by  D.  Oken,  1805.  By  *  sacristy,'  I  mean  that 
he  treats  of  and  displays  life  as  incomprehensible  in  his  "  Primitive 
Forms  of  Life  of  the  Infusoria,"  in  which,  in  point  of  fact,  he  less 
illustrates  conception  and  life  than  growth  and  existence.  I  also  refer 
to  his  pleasantly  bold  hypothesis  that  in  the  infusorial  chaos  (the  only 
one  in  the  universe)  several  existences  become  one;  and  that  this 
unity  of  pluralities  again  condenses  itself  into  a  more  distinct  plural 
unity  in  a  higher  life-grade.  For  the  rest  I  read  all  that  is  written 
about  the  infusion-creations  with  an  old  shrinking;  and  all  the 
successive  grades  of  the  existences  which  have  been  developed  from 
the  grand  infusorium  of  the  whole  world.  I  am  also  fully  persuaded 
that  as  tliere  is  no  bridge  of  stops  between  mechanism  and  vitality,  so 
ihe  riddle  of  the  widely  extended  revivification  and  quickening  will 
be  solved  in  any  other  wise  rather  thas  in  chemistry. 


364  JEAN  PAUL   FRIEDRICH   EICHTER.       [fEAG.  VI. 

i  fair  sacristy.  How  easily  a  child's  curiosity  may  be 
restrained  and  yet  satisfied  is  very  clearly  shown  in  the 
fact  that  during  the  last  three  centuries  millions  of  Chris- 
tians have  died  who  have  regularly  every  Sunday  heard 
that  baptism  took  the  place  of  the  ancient  Jewish  rite  of 
circumcision,  and  yet  have  never  thought,  far  less  asked, 
what  circumcision  is.  Children  learn  and  ask  in  the  same 
way.  The  author  received  his  first  instruction  in  this 
article  of  Christian  faith  after  eighteen  years'  study  of 
Jewish  works.  Ye  teachers  of  religion,  schoolmasters, 
tutors  and  preachers,  think  ye  of  circumcision  in  such  wise 
that  ye  accomplish  on  yourselves  that  Jean-Pauline  rite 
of  the  foreskin  of  the  lips  and  of  the  heart ! 

On  the  other  hand  such  words,  like  these,  Gebaren 
(delivery),  Hochzeitnacht  (wedding-night),  &c.,  prove  how 
un-significant  and  pure,  even  holy  in  all  senses,  the  thing 
indicated  is  and  appears,  so  long  as  the  manner  of  indicating 
is  equally  so. But  if  indeed  an  older  child  ask  a  ques- 
tion; in  that  case  I  quietly  begin  a  regular  anatomy- 
lecture,  for  example,  on  the  heart  (just  as  a  Frenchwoman, 
with  the  opposite  intention,  might  do) — and  proceed :  I 
give  him  seriousness,  calmness  and  tediousness,  and  then 
an  answer. 

One  other  remark  may  perhaps  afford  consolation  to 
some  parents :  children  at  an  immature  and  hobbledehoy 
age  have,  simply  out  of  awkwardness  and  ignorance,  or 
even  heedlessness  about  all  puzzle  of  sex,  a  particular 
inclination — which  by  repeated  instruction  and  correction 
duly  disappears — to  do  and  to  say  improper  things.  This 
is  sometimes  very  strangely  manifested.  I  once  heard 
some  really  pure-minded  good  children  beg  their  father 
to  repeat  some  ugly  words  (referring  to  rudeness  of  speech 
more  than  sex)  which  he  had  forbidden  them  to  use,  be- 
cause, they  said,  they  liked  to  hear  such  words.  Be  not 
afraid,  if  you  educate  your  children  carefully,  of  evil 
results.  In  the  case  of  healthy  children,  especially,  you 
need  have  no  fear ;  but  physical  indisposition  too  easily 
induces  a  morbid  sickliness  of  the  mind. 

Only  upon  one  point,  with  all  possible  frankness  of 
explanation  one  must  be  careful,  and  adhere  closely  to  the 
most  anxious-minded  preacher  on  training :  namelj  on  the 


CHAP.  IV.]  LEVANA.  365 

external  action-similitude  between  men  and  beasts.  Hap- 
pily it  is  only  an  un-similitude.  Never  allow  the  modest 
half-grown  youth  to  dream  of  or  to  find  out  bit  by  bit  any 
sort  of  likeness  between  his  revered  ones  and  the  beasts  of 
the  field.  The  pure  child-like  though  presaging  nature 
trembles  before  this  likeness.  If  it  is  freely  displayed  to 
him,  and  the  holy  awe  is  overcome,  then  the  child  has 
grown  old  by  too  many  years  at  once:  —  thought  now 
works  in  favour  of  act,  as  otherwise  against  it— away 
from  truth  and  the  repeated  sight  of  her  impulse  still 
lessens  the  burning  hues — and  the  storms  of  his  spring 
rage  and  afflict. 

In  short,  if  there  be  any  time  when  one  person's  aid  is 
needed  in  the  development  of  another,  it  is  when  the 
ripening  youth  (or  maiden)  first  discovers  his  new  Ame- 
rica-world of  sex,  when  the  fresh  blooming  man  bursts 
away  from  the  fading  child.  Happily  nature  herself  has 
provided  a  counterpoise  to  these  spiritual  spring-storms, 
in  the  season  of  fairest  dreams,  of  ideal  excellence,  and 
the  highest  enthusiasm  for  all  that  is  great.  The  watch- 
ful teacher  also  may  add  a  balancing  weight  to  the  heart, 
namely,  the  head  ;  that  is,  let  him  reserve  for  that  season 
some  new  science,  some  new  object  of  engrossing  interest, 
some  new  path  in  life.  It  is  true  this  will  not  extinguish 
the  volcano ;  but  the  lava  pouring  into  this  sea  will  merely 
harden  into  a  rock,  and  tho  evil  will  be  less  than  the 
anxiety.  For,  out  of  all  the  yawning  and  dreaded  preci- 
pices of  this  age,  does  not  a  majority  of  healthy  living 
voices  arise  which  have  not  been  silenced  and  which  do 
not  stammer  or  complain  ?  It  is  but  a  very  small  number 
which  is  silent,  without  throat — without  lungs — without 
limbs  of  any  sort — without  mind — without  body — mere 
unburied  corpses  of  hovering  ghosts — Heaven  grant  them 
a  grave ! 


366  JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDEICH  RICHTEE.     [PRAG.  Vlt 


SEVENTH  FRAGMENT. 

Chap.  I.  More  accurate  definition  of  the  desire  for  intelleetaal 
progress,  §  128.  Chap.  II.  Speech  and  writing,  §§  129,  130. 
Chap.  III.  Attention,  and  the  power  of  adaptive  combination  ; 
Pestalozzi ;  difference  between  mathematics  and  philosophy,  §§  131 
—133.  Chap.  IV.  Development  of  wit,  §§  134—136.  Chap.  V. 
Development  of  reflection,  abstraction,  and  self-knowledge  ;  together 
with  an  extra  paragrapli  on  the  powers  of  action  and  business, 
§§  137,  138.  Chap.  VI.  On  the  education  of  the  recollection,  not  of 
the  memory,  §§  139—142. 


CHAPTER  I. 

ON   THE   DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE   DESIRE   FOR   INTELLECTUAL 
PROGRESS. 

§  128. 

Other  writers  on  education  name  the  intellectual  forming- 
impulse  'the  faculty  of  knowledge'— that  is  to  say,  thev 
call  painting  seeing — or  '  the  intellectual  powers,'  but 
think  of  the  senses  and  the  memory  as  also  exerting 
an  educational  influence;  or  they  speak  of  the  develop- 
ment of  spontaneous  activity,  as  if  the  will  itself  were 
not  such  a  developing  power.  The  majority  (before 
Pestalozzi)  only  attempted  to  pour  into  the  mind  a  vast 
amount  of  knowledge  of  every  kind,  and  thought  an  intel- 
ligent man  must  be  the  necessary  result.  Learned  fools, 
with  mind  neither  for  the  present  nor  the  future,  who 
(like  finite  beings  in  another  sense)  are  continuously 
created,  but  never  able  to  create ;  heirs  of  all  ideas,  but 
originators  of  none,  they  are  indeed  samples  of  their 
education,  but  no  proofs  of  its  excellence  ! 

We  will  take  the  straight  path  which  leads  to  the  centre, 
instead  of  wandering  round  and  round  the  circle. 


CHAP.  I.]  LEV  ANA.  367 

The  will  reprodiicei  itself  only,  and  acts  only  within, 
not  without,  itself ;  for  the  external  action  is  as  little  the 
new  act  of  the  particular  volition,  as  are  the  words  signi- 
fying it  of  the  particular  thought.  The  desire  of  mental 
progress,  on  the  contrary,  enlarges  its  world  for  the  recep- 
tion of  new  creatures,  and  is  as  dependent  on  objects  as 
the  pure  will  is  independent  of  them.  The  will  could 
reach  its  ideal,  but  finds  a  strange  opposition  to  it — Kant's 
radical-evil  —whereas  no  power  stands  opposed  to  thought 
^-as  bin  does  to  virtue — but  only  the  difference  between 
its  steps,  and  the  impossibilit}'  of  seeing  whither  they 
reach.  To  know  nothing  is  not  so  bad  as  to  do  nothing  ; 
and  error  is  less  the  opponent  than  the  accompaniment 
of  truth;  for  to  miscalculate  means  merely  to  obtain 
Komething  different  from  what  it  should  be,  but  btill  to 
calculate;  whereas  immorality  stands  directly  opposed  to 
morality. 

The  mental  desire  of  advancement  which,  in  a  higher 
sense  than  the  physical,  works  by  means  of  and  in  accord- 
ance with  the  will,  that  is  to  say,  creates  new  ideas  out  of 
old  ideas,  is  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  man.  No 
will  restrains  the  order  of  a  beast's  actions.  In  our 
waking  moments  we  are  actually  conscious  that  we  think  ; 
in  our  dreams  we  receive,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  that 
consciousness.  In  the  man  of  genius  the  formation  of 
ideas  appears  actually  creative;  in  ordinary  men,  merely 
recoUective  and  necessary  :  the  precise  shades  of  difference 
are,  however,  difficult  to  define.  The  developments  of  this 
formative  power  are,  first,  language ;  and  secondly,  obser- 
vation ;  both  of  which  by  defining  and  marking  an  idea 
bring  it  more  accurately  before  the  mind :  thirdly,  ima- 
gination, which  is  capable  of  retaining  a  whole  series  of 
ideas,  so  as  to  obtain  from  it  the  unknown,  but  sought  for 
and,  consequently,  anticipated  greatness,  either  as  part, 
consequence,  foundation,  symbol,  or  image :  fourthly,  wit : 
fifthly,  reflection:  sixthly,  remembrance. 

From  this  almost  genealogical  gradation  it  is  readily 

Serceived  that  all  instruction  naturally  falls  into  two 
istinct  classes,  one  of  which—  mathematics,  for  example 
— provides  organic  material  for  the  intelltjotual  energies ; 
the  other — such  as  natural  history — only  inanimate  objects. 


368  JEAN  PAUL   FEIEDRICH   EICHTEK.     [fRAG.  VII. 

For  all  cumulative  preliminary  instruction,  be  it  in  natural 
history,  geography,  history,  antiquities,  only  provides  the 
intellect  with  materials,  not  with  incitements  tc  labour 
and  power.  The  old  division  into  knowledge  of  words 
and  knowledge  of  things  is  certainly  correct;  but  the 
inventory  of  what  belongs  to  one  class,  and  what  to  the 
other,  is  about  as  erroneous  as  that  of  diseases  before  the 
time  of  Brown,  which,  as  by  him,  were  divided  into 
sthenic  and  asthenic,  diarrhoea  and  plague  being  placed 
in  the  former,  and  the  truly  sthenic  complaints  of  coughs, 
catarrhs,  &c.,  in  the  latter  class.  Language,  for  instance, 
was  ranked  as  a  knowledge  of  words  ;  the  history  of  nature 
and  of  nations,  as  a  knowledge  of  things :  it  ought  to  be 
reversed. 

One  word  in  this  place  on  the  abuse,  or  too  great  use,  of 
natural  history.  This  seems  to  be  the  wishing-cap  of  those 
teachers  who  have  little  of  that  on  which  the  hat  is  usually 
placed;  or  the  purveyor  of  those  who  are  deficient  in  sci- 
entific knowledge.  The  author  was  gratified  by  finding, 
iii  Goethe's  Elective  Affinities,  accordance  with  a  thought 
which  he  had  noted  down  in  his  children's  diary  in  January 
1808  ;  namely,  what  advantage  can  children  obtain  from 
the  description  of  an  unknown  foreign  animal  which  would 
not  equally  result  from  that  of  any  casual  monster?  At 
most  this  unverified  account  can  but  serve  as  honey  on 
wholesome  bread,  or  as  the  bill  of  sale  of  some  animal  to 
be  seen;  and  is  altogether  a  mere  home-reading  by  the 
light  of  the  embers.  But,  on  the  contrary,  the  most  minute 
family  history,  with  representations  the  size  of  life,  should 
be  given  about  all  domestic  and  native  animals.  Yea,  how 
very  much  would  botany  and  mineralogy,  not  only  as 
exercising  the  observation,  but  also  as  enriching  the 
present,  exceed  the  small  advantages  of  foreign  zoology ! 
Just  in  the  same  way  might  the  modern  expensively 
painted  worlds  (orhis  pidus)  be  advantageously  replaced 
by  workshops,  in  which  one  artificer  after  another  could 
actually  show  and  explain  his  trade  to  his  children-guests. 


CHAP,  ir.]  LEV  ANA.  369 


CHAPTER  II. 

SPEECH  AND  WRITING. 

§129. 

To  learn  to  speak  is  something  higher  than  to  learn  to 
speak  languages;  and  all  the  advantages  which  are  as- 
cribed to  the  ancient  languages,  as  educational  media,  apply 
with  double  force  to  the  mother- tongue.  Every  new  lan- 
guage is  only  understood  by  connecting  and  balancing  it 
with  the  first :  the  original  primary  sign  merely  acquires 
another  sign ;  and  so  the  new  language  is  not  formed  on 
the  one  last  learned,  nor  is  one  dependent  on  another,  but 
all  on  the  first  native  tongue. 

Name  to  the  child  every  object,  every  sensation,  every 
action,  in  case  of  exigency  even  by  a  foreign  word  (for  to 
the  child,  as  yet,  there  is  none);  and  always,  where  it  is 
possible,  arouse  his  attention  and  give  accuracy  to  his  per- 
ceptions by  naming  all  the  individual  parts  of  whatever 
you  may  have  in  hand.  A  child  has  invariably  so  great 
a  love  of  hearing  that  he  will  constantly  ask  questions 
about  matters  which  he  knows,  merely  in  order  to  hear 
you  speak  ;  or  will  even  tell  you  some  little  story,  so  as  to 
have  the  pleasure  of  hearing  you  afterwards  talk  about 
it  to  him.  By  the  fact  of  naming,  external  objects,  like 
islands,  are  taken  possession  of,  and  animals  are  tamed  by 
accustoming  them  to  answer  to  a  name.  Without  a  de- 
fining word — the  mental  index-finger — unlimited  nature 
stands  before  a  child  like  a  column  of  quicksilver  without 
a  barometric  scale  (to  the  beast  it  is  even  without  the  ball 
of  quicksilver)  and  by  it  no  movement  can  be  obseived. 
Speech  is  the  finest  line-drawer  of  infinity,  the  dividing 
water  of  chaos  :  the  importance  of  its  minute  subdivisions 
is  shown  in  savages,  with  whom  frequently  a  single  word 
signifies  a  whole  sentence.  A  village  child  is  inferior  to  a 
town  child  merely  by  his  poverty  of  speech.  To  the  dumb 
Ijeast  the  whole  world  gives  but  one  impression,  and  so 
from  want  of  two  he  does  not  even  count  one. 
Let  every  material  substance  be  both  mentally  and 
L  2  b 


370  JEAN    PAUL    FRIEDRICH   KICHTER.        [fRAG.  VII. 

pliysically  divided  and  analysed  before  the  child  during 
the  first  ten  years  of  his  life ;  but  suffer  nothing  spiritual 
to  undergo  the  same  process,  for  this,  which  exists  only 
once  and  that  within  the  child,  soon  dies,  without  the 
chance  of  resurrection,  under  the  severing-knife ;  bodies, 
on  the  contrary,  return  new-born  every  day. 

The  mother- tongue  affords  the  most  innocent  philosophy 
and  exercise  of  reflection  for  children.  Speak  very  much 
and  very  clearly;  and  oblige  them  to  be  definite  in  the 
affairs  of  every-day  life.  Why  do  you  leave  mental  de- 
velopment by  means  of  language  to  a  foreign  tongue  ? 

Occasionally  attempt  longer  sentences  than  the  short 
childish  ones  of  many  teachers,  or  the  hackneyed  ones  of 
most  French  writers :  an  unintelligibleness  which  brings 
its  own  solution  by  mere  unaltered  repetition  exercises  and 
strengthens  the  mind.  Sometimes  exercise  even  little 
children  with  riddles  of  contradictory  words :  such  as,  I 
heard  this  with  my  eyes ;  this  is  very  prettily  ugly. 

Do  not  fear  the  unintelligibleness  even  of  whole  sentences; 
your  mien,  your  accent,  and  the  forestalling  effort  to  under- 
stand explain  one  half,  and  this,  with  the  assistance  of  time, 
explains  the  other.  With  children,  as  with  the  Chinese  and 
men  of  the  world,  accent  is  half  the  language.  Remember 
than  they  learn  to  understand  your  language  much  sooner 
that  to  speak  it,  just  as  we  do  Greek  or  any  foreign  tongue. 
Trust  to  the  deciphering  aid  of  time  and  of  the  context. 
A  child  of  five  years  old  understands  the  words  "  but, 
indeed,  now,  on  the  contrary,  certainly ;"  but,  if  you  desire 
an  explanati  n  of  them,  ask  the  father,  not  the  child.  The 
word  indeed  alone  would  puzzle  a  little  philosopher.  If 
the  child  of  eight  years  old  finds  his  improved  language 
understood  by  a  child  of  three,  why  should  you  contract 
yours  to  his  V(  »cabulary  ?  Always  employ  a  language  some 
years  in  advance  of  rhe  child  (men  of  genius  in  their  books 
Speak  to  us  from  the  vantage  ground  of  centuries)  :  speak 
to  the  one-year-old  child  as  though  he  were  two,  and  to 
him  as  though  he  were  six;  for  the  difference  of  progress 
diminishes  in  the  inverse  proportion  of  years.  Let  the 
teacher,  especially  he  who  is  too  much  in  the  habit  of  attri- 
buting all  learning  to  teaching,  consider  that  the  child 
already  carries  half  his  world,  that  of  mind — the  objects. 


CHAP.  II.J  LEVANA.  371 

for  instance,  of  moral  and  metaphysical  contemplation — 
ready  formed  within  him  ;  and  he- nee  that  language,  being 
provided  only  with  physical  images,  cannot  give,  can 
merely  illumine,  Ids  mental  conceptions. 

Cheerfulness,  like  distinctness  in  conversation  with 
children,  should  be  imparted  to  us  by  their  cheerfulness 
and  dibtinetness.  N\  e  may  learn  to  speak  from  them,  as 
well  as  teach  them  by  speaking ;  for  instance,  such  bold 
and  yet  ( orrectly  formed  words  as  I  have  heard  from  three 
and  four-year-old  children  :  "  the  beer-casker,  the  stringer , 
the  bottler,"  instead  of  the  maker  of  casks,  strings,  and 
bottles — •'  the  flying  mouse,"  certainly  much  better  than 
our  word  bat — "  the  music  fiddles — to  ausscheeren  *  the 
candle  [from  Lichtscheere,  snutfers] — dreschflegeln,  dresclieln 
[to  thresh,  from  Dreschfiegel,  fl^il] — I  am  the  look-through 
man  (when  standing  behind  a  telescope; — I  wish  I  had 
an  appointment  »s  gingerbreadnnteater,  or  gingerbread- 
nutter — After  all  1  shall  be  quite  too  wiser — He  has  joked 
me  dincn  from  off  the  chair — Look  (at  the  clockj  how 
one  it  is  already,"  &c. 

In  later  years  it  becomes  part  of  instruction  in  language 
to  show  the  living  foimdation  of  the  colourless  images  t)f 
every  day  speech.  A  young  man  uses  the  expressions,  '*  all 
made  on  the  same  last,"  or  ''fishing  in  troubled  waters;" 
and  when  he  finds  that  the  shoemaker  really  uses  such  a 
last,  and  that  fishing  in  troubled  water  is  practised,  he  is 
astonished  to  discover  that  a  real  fact  is  the  foundation  of 
the  transparent  image. 

Pestalozzi  rommences  the  division  of  the  universe  into 
parts  by  that  of  the  body  into  limbs ;  because  it  is  in 
closest  and  most  important  connection  with  the  child,  and 
is  eveiy  where  composed  of  similar  parts,  whi(  h  is  not  the 
case  with  plants  or  utensils.  A  still  more  important  ad- 
vantage is,  that  there  are  always  two  examples  of  it  in  the 
study ;  and  that  the  child,  between  I  and  thoUy  between 
the  larger  visible  limbs  of  his  teacher  and  his  own  smaller 
ones,  sensible  only  to  the  touch,  can  always  pass  from  one 
object  to  another  and  compare  them  together.  At  the 
same  time,  Pestalozzi  will  not  only  divide  and  illumine  the 
waste  ether  with  clearly  marked  names,  as  with  stars,  but, 
*  Some  of  these  expreuloDS  lose  their  effect  in  tranalatioa. 

2  fi  2 


372  JEAN  PAUL  FEIEDKTCH  EICHTER.        fFRAG.  VII. 

while  he  teaches  the  child  to  collect  the  subdivisions  under 
their  division,  the  lesser  under  the  greater  whole,  he  de- 
velopes  the  capacity  of  retaining  whole  series,  or  the  power 
of  adaptive  combination — of  which  hereafter. 

Fichte,  in  his  Discourses  to  the  German  nation,  attaches 
too  little  value  to  the  naming  and,  as  it  were,  A  B  C,  of 
external  objects  and  observations,  requiring  them  merely 
for  what  is  internal,  for  sensations  ;  because  he  thinks  that 
the  naming  of  the  former  class  only  serves  the  child  for 
communication,  not  for  the  better  understanding  of  it» 
But  it  seems  to  me  that,  as  the  speechless  animal  floats 
about  in  the  external  world  as  in  a  dark  bewildering 
ocean,  so  man  would  be  equally  lost  in  the  starry  firma- 
ment of  external  perceptions,  did  he  not,  by  means  of  lan- 
guage, divide  the  confused  stars  into  constellations,  and 
thus  reveal  the  whole  in  parts  to  the  comprehension.  Lan- 
guage alone  illumines  the  vast  monotonously  coloured 
chart  of  the  universe. 

Our  forefathers,  from  pedantic  and  economic  reasons, 
but  with  advantageous  results  as  a  mental  gymnastic  and 
excitement,  ranked  a  foreign  language,  such  as  Latin, 
among  the  great  powers  of  education.  Certainly  the 
dictionary  of  foreign  words  developes  little,  except  by 
teaching  the  fine  shades  of  difierence  among  our  own  :  but 
the  grammar,  as  the  logic  of  the  tongue — the  first  philo- 
sophy of  reflection—  does  much ;  for  it  carries  the  signs  of 
things  back  to  the  things  themselves  and  compels  the 
mind,  turned  upon  itself,  to  observe  the  method  of  its 
observations,  that  is,  to  reflect,  or  at  least  to  take  firmer 
possession  of  the  sign  and  not  to  confuse  it,  as  a  mere 
expression,  with  the  sensation  itself.  During  immaturity 
this  kind  of  knowledge  is  better  obtained  through  the 
grammar  of  a  foreign  language  than  through  that  of  our 
own,  which  is  more  indissolubly  blended  with  the  sensa- 
tion ;  hence  logically-cultivated  people  first  learned  to  con- 
struct their  own  language  by  a  foreign  one,  and  Cicero 
went  to  a  Greek  sooner  than  to  a  Latin  school ;  and  hence, 
in  those  centuries  when  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages 
formed  the  whole  subject  of  learning,  the  intellect  became 
more  formal,  and  unsubstantidl  logic  filled  the  mind,  as 
the  whole  scholastic  philosophy  proves.  When  Huart 
asserts  that  a  good  head  learns  grammar  with  the  most 


CHAP.  II.]  LEVANA.  373 

difficulty,  lie  can  only  mean,  unless  lie  confuses  dictionary 
with  grammar,  a  head  formed  for  business  or  art  rather 
than  for  thought.  Every  good  grammarian,  the  Hebrew 
Tacitus  Danz  for  instance,  is  partly  a  philosopher ;  and 
he  must  be  a  philosopher  who  writes  the  best  grammar. 
The  grammatic  analysis  of  the  old  schools  only  diflfers  in 
its  object  from  Pestalozzi's  visible  series.  Consequently 
a  foreign  language,  particularly  the  Latin,  is  among 
the  healthiest  early  exercises  of  the  power  of  thinking. 

§  130. 

Since  writing  signifies  but  the  sign  of  things,  and 
brings  us  through  it  to  the  things  themselves,  it  is  a 
stricter  isolator  and  clearer  collector  of  the  ideas  than 
even  speech  itself.  Sound  teaches  quickly  and  generally  ; 
writing,  uninterruptedly  and  with  more  accuracy.  Writing, 
from  that  which  the  writing-master  teaches  to  that  which 
approaches  the  province  of  the  author,  gives  clearness  to 
the  ideas.  We  will  not  here  lay  too  great  stress  on  the 
fact  that  the  letters  which  Sevigne  wrote  are  much  more 
elegant  than  those  she  dictated ;  or  that  Montesquieu, 
who  could  not  himself  write,  frequently  passed  three  hours 
before  any  thing  worthy  of  preservation  occurred  to  him, 
whence  many  deduce  the  curt  style  of  his  writings  ;  but  it 
is  certain  that  our  representation  is  much  more  a  mental 
seeing  than  hearing,  and  that  our  metaphors  play  far 
more  on  an  instrument  of  colour  than  of  sound,  and 
therefore  writing  which  lingers  under  the  eyes  must  assist 
the  formation  of  ideas  to  a  much  greater  extent  than  the 
rapid  flight  of  sound.  The  scholar,  indeed,  carries  it  so 
far  that,  when  he  reflects,  he  really  seems  to  read  a  printed 
page ;  and  when  he  speaks,  to  give  a  little  declamation 
out  of  a  quickly  and  well  written  pamphlet. 

Let  boys  write  out  their  own  thoughts  sooner  than  copy 
yours,  so  that  they  may  learn  to  exchange  the  heavy- 
ringing  coin  of  sound  into  more  convenient  paper  money. 
And  let  them  be  spared  the  writing-texts  of  schoolmasters, 
containing  the  praises  of  industry,  of  writing,  of  their 
master,  or  of  some  old  prince ;  in  short,  subjects  about 
which  the  teacher  can  produce  nothing  better  than  his 
pupils.     Every  representation  without  some  actual  object 


374  JEAN  PAXIL   FRTEBRICH   EICHTER.         [frAG.  VII. 

or  motive  is  poison.  Since  some  real  occurrence  always 
suggested  to  men  of  genius,  such  as  Lessing,  Konsseau  and 
others,  the  subject  of  their  fictions,  thus  occasional  in  the 
highest  sense  of  that  word ;  how  can  you  require  a  boy  to 
dip  his  pencil  in  the  airy  blue  of  indefiniteness,  and  there- 
with so  paint  the  vault  of  heaven  that  the  invisible  tint 
shall  produce  the  colour  of  Prussian  blue  ?  I  cannot 
understand  schoolmasters  !  Must  the  man,  even  in  child- 
hood, preach  from  the  appointed  Sunday  text,  and  never 
choose  one  for  himself  in  nature's  bible  ?  Something 
similar  may  be  said  abont  the  writing  of  open  letters  (an 
unsealed  one  is  almost  inevitably  half  untrue)  which  the 
teachers  of  girls'  schools  require  in  order,  say  they,  to 
exercise  their  pupils  in  epistolary  style.  A  nothing 
writes  to  a  nothing :  the  whole  affair,  undertaken  by  the 
desire  of  the  teacher  not  of  the  heart,  is  a  certificate  of  the 
death  of  thoughts,  an  announcement  of  the  burning  of 
the  materials.  Happy  is  it  if  the  commanded  A^olubility 
of  the  child,  arising  from  coldness  and  addiessed  to 
emptiness,  do  not  accustom  her  to  insincerity,  if  letters 
must  be  forthcoming,  let  them  be  written  to  some  fixed 
person,  about  some  definite  thing.  But  what  need  of  so 
much  ado  about  nothing,  since — not  even  excepting  poli- 
tical or  literary  newspapers — nothing  can  be  written  so 
easily  as  letters  on  any  subject  when  there  is  a  motive  for 
them,  and  the  mind  is  fully  informed  of  the  matter  ? 

The  writing  of  one  page  excites  the  desire  of  learning 
more  strongly  than  the  reading  of  a  whole  book.  Many 
readers  of  select  school  libraries  are  scarcely  able  to  write 
a  clear  and  good  account  of  a  fatal  accident  and  a  request 
for  charitable  assistance  for  a  weekly  newspaper.  And  it 
is  equally  true  that  many  writers  are  just  as  indifferent 
speakers :  they  resemble  many  great  merchants  in  Am- 
sterdam who  have  no  warehouse,  but  onlj'  a  writing-room ; 
give  them  time,  however,  and  they  will  procure  the  goods 
by  writing.  Comeille  spoke  badly,  but  he  made  his 
heroes  declaim  excellently.  Kegard  every  pupil  for  ex- 
amination as  a  stammering  dumb  Comeille,  and  provide 
him  a  room,  time,  and  a  pen  ;  he  will  speak  by  these  and 
so  pass  a  very  good  examination.  I  close  this  chapter  as  a 
certain  Indian  begins  his  book — Blessed  be  the  man  who 
invented  writing  I 


CUAP.  III.]  LEVANA.  375 

CHAPTER   III. 

ATTEXriOy,    AND   THK    POWER    OF    ADAPTIVE    COMBINATION. 

§  131. 

Bonnet  calls  Attention  the  mother  of  Genius,  but  she  is  in 
fact  her  daughter  ;  from  whence  does  she  derive  her  origin, 
save  from  tlie  marriage  contracted  in  heaven  between  the 
object  and  the  desire  for  it?  Hence  attention  can  really 
be  as  little  preached  or  flogged  into  a  person  as  ability. 
Swift  in  a  musical  academy — Mozart  in  a  philosophical 
lecture- room — Raifaelle  in. a  political  club — Frederick  the 
Great  in  a  cour  d'amour — could  you  give  an  attentive  ear 
to  these  different  men,  all  of  whom  possess  genius,  are  of 
mature  years,  and  have  thoughts  about  the  important 
matters  of  art,  science,  love,  and  politics  ?  And  do  you 
expect  and  desire  it  in  children,  in  persons  of  unripe  age 
and  inferior  capacity'-  for  much  more  tiifling  objects  ?  But, 
in  fact,  you  desire  that  your  individual  attention,  which 
exhibits  as  much  caprice  with  regard  to  its  objects  as  that 
of  a  man  of  genius,  should  be  acquired  by  the  child,  and 
that  your  narrowness  of  view  should  be  shared  by  him. 

If  you  attach  reward  or  punishment  to  the  child's 
attention  to  any  object,  you  have  put  another,  that  of  self- 
intere?jt,  in  its  place,  rather  than  strengthened  the  mental 
power  or  excited  the  desire  of  improvement;  at  most  you 
have  but  laboured  for  the  memory.  Ko  sensuous  pleasure 
lines  the  path  into  the  empire  of  mind ;  hence  studying 
for  a  livelihood  resembles  the  stone  by  whose  aid  the  diver 
sinks  more  rapidly  to  seek  pearls  for  his  master,  and  which 
the  aeronaut  takes  with  him  for  the  very  different  pur- 
pose of  rising  higher  towards  heaven  when  he  casts  it 
overboard. 

But  what  is  to  be  done?  So  teachers  always  ask 
instead  of  first  asking,  what  is  to  be  avoided?  The  laws 
of  their  order  forbid  the  ile>uits  to  study  longer  than  two 
hours ;  but  your  school  laws  command  little  children  to 
study,  that  is  to  be  attentive,  a«  long  as  older  people  can 
teach :  it  is  quite  too  much ;  especially  when  one  con- 
•iders  the  child's  senses  open  to  every  influence,  the  cheerful 


376  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDEICH   EICIITER.       [fEAG.  VII. 

sounds  of  tlie  busy  market-place,  the  blossoming  boughs 
waving  round  the  schoolroom  windows,  the  narrow  strip 
of  sunshine  on  the  dull  schoolroom  floor,  and  the  delicious 
certainty  on  Saturday  that  there  will  be  no  lessons  in  the 
afternoon. 

There  have  been  many  cases  in  which  the  author  of 
Levana  himself  has  resolved  to  lend  an  attentive  ear  to 
some  story,  not  more  than  a  quarter  of  an  hour  long,  so 
as  to  be  able  to  relate  it  afterwards  :  he  did  inwardly 
what  he  could,  and  laboured  to  maintain  the  closest 
attention ;  but  this  very  labour  gave  rise  to  incidental 
thoughts;  he  was  compelled  to  request  a  repetition 
in  order  to  catch  the  thread  of  the  story;  and  then,  at 
last,  after  all  this  resolute  anxiety,  determination  and 
design,  he  had  obtained  nothing  more  than  a  table  of 
contents  of  the  story,  which  he  could  enlarge  upon  in  the 
proper  place.  Do  you  think  it  easier  for  a  child  to 
command  his  attention  and  repress  weariness  than  for  a 
grown-up  man  who  addresses  him  ?  1 1  is  possible  for  a 
child  to  take  the  greatest  interest  in  your  instruction,  but 
not  just  to-day,  nor  at  this  particular  window ;  or,  per- 
haps, because  he  has  seen  or  tasted  some  novelty ;  or, 
perhaps,  because  his  father  has  announced  either  a  country 
ramble  or  a  confinement ;  or  because  his  former  inattention 
has  met  its  punishment,  and  the  child  now  thinks  far 
more  of  the  punishment  than  of  the  means  of  avoiding  it. 
Human  beings,  in  fact,  are  incapable  of  uninterrupted 
attention  (eternal  longing  may  be  much  more  truly 
promised  than  eternal  loving),  and  the  child's  attention 
is  not  always  identical  with  that  of  his  parents. 

If  novelty  be  confessedly  the  keenest  sharpener  of  the 
inner  ear,  the  forcing-house  of  every  plant,  why  do 
teachers,  after  constant  repetitions,  require  the  first 
eagerness  of  attention  from  the  young  souls  everywhere 
surrounded  by  new  worlds?  Do  you  suppose  their 
pillow  is  a  gilded  cushion  on  which  the  glass  is  rubbed 
to  obtain  electricity? 

If  it  be  difficult  to  place  ourselves  in  the  position  of 
persons  similarly  circumstanced,  how  much  more  difficult 
must  it  be  to  do  so  with  regard  to  persons  unlike  our- 
selves !  How  many  instances  are  there  of  teachers  having 
warmed   themselves  for  years  by  the   schoolroom  stove, 


CHAP.  in.J  liEVANA.  377 

without  remarking  or  remembering  anything  about  the 
raised  figures,  by  which  the  manufacturer  endeavoured  to 
display  his  taste  and  skill.  Let  every  reader  after  the 
perusal  of  these  lines  examine  his  apartment,  and  observe 
whether  he  does  not  become  conscious  of  twenty  new 
objects,  among  which  he  has  constantly  lived  without 
hitherto  being  aware  of  their  presence !  Were  we 
inclined  to  enter  into  more  minute  particulars,  it  would, 
among  other  examples,  be  easy  to  show  the  different 
effects  of  mere  writing-copies  on  a  child's  attention.  If  he 
have  the  same  words  to  copy  throughout  the  whole  page, 
each  line  will  be  worse  written  than  its  predecessor ,  but 
if  the  copy  change  frequently,  he  will  have  a  new  source 
of  interest  and  attention  from  line  to  line ;  still,  even  in 
this  case,  novelty  will  exert  its  power  over  the  attention, 
and  the  first  word,  like  the  first  line,  will  be  the  best 
written.  Kepetition,  else  the  main-spring  of  instruction, 
is  the  chief  destroyer  of  attention ;  because,  in  order  to 
give  attention  to  what  is  repeated,  you  must  first  have 
found  it  worthy  of  a  still  greater  exertion  of  that  "acuity. 

A  very  important  distinction  must  be  drawn  between 
the  power  of  attention  diffused  among  the  generality  of 
men  and  that  appertaining  solely  to  men  of  genius. 

The  latter  can  only  be  recognised,  protected  and 
cherished,  but  not  created.  Pay  attention,  0  teachers ! 
to  the  attention  manifested  by  your  children,  so  that  you 
may  not,  to  the  injury  of  his  whole  future  life,  demand 
from  the  genius  who  astonishes  you  with  his  power  and 
his  brilliancy  the  very  opposite  qualities  to  those  he 
possesses :  do  not  expect  a  painter's  eye  in  a  Haydn,  nor 
a  poem  from  an  Aristotle.  Pay  attention  to  this,  and 
you  will  not  offer  to  immortal  Love  an  ape  instead 
of  a  Psyche. 

This  instinct-like  attention,  waiting  till  its  proper 
object  is  manifested,  explains  some  apparent  anomalies, 
such  as  that  the  deep -thinking  Thomas  Aquinas  in  his 
youth  was  called  a  cow,  and  that  the  mathematician 
fcJchmidt,  from  incapacity  for  study  or  business,  continued 
a  mere  labourer  for  thirty-eight  years.  Good  trees  at 
first  produce  only  wood,  not  fruit.  Pure  silver  when 
broken  seems  black.      Afterwards,  the  work  advances  all 


378  JEAN    PAUL   FRIEDEICH    RICHTER.       [fRAG.  VII. 

the  easier  and  the  quicker  ;  and  while  information  and 
talent  have  to  raise  their  gifts  laboriously,  like  gold  out 
of  deep  mines,  genius  presents  his  like  jewels  gathered 
out  of  loose  sand. 

On  the  other  hand,  common  every-day  attention  needs 
not  so  much  to  be  aroused,  as  to  be  distributed  and 
condensed  ;  even  careless,  inattentive  children  possess  the 
faculty,  but  it  is  dissipated  upon  all  passing  objects.  The 
child  in  his  new  world  resembles  a  German  in  Rome,  a 
pilgrim  in  the  Holy  Land.  Attention  to  every  thing  is 
impossible :  the  whole  of  no  ball  can  be  seen.  You 
elevate  the  passive  being,  before  whom  the  world  moves 
unnoticed,  into  an  active  one,  by  placing  some  one  object 
in  a  prominent  position :  by  displaying  its  wonders  you 
excite  his  interest.  Perpetually  ask  children  Why  ? 
The  questions  of  the  teacher  find  more  open  ears  than  his 
answers.  You  can  elevate  hi  in  also,  as  Pestalozzi  recom- 
mends, by  the  magnifying  glass  of  separation :  and  then 
again  by  restoring  it  as  before.  As  God,  according  to  the 
schoolmen,  knows  every  thing  because  He  made  it,  teach 
the  child  his  power  of  mental  creation;  readiness  of 
attention  in  recognising  things  will  then  follow  naturally. 
And  this  brings  me  to  the  succeeding  paragraphs  on  the 
power  of  adaptive  combination. 

§  132. 

The  old  notion  that  mathematics  exercises  and  requires 
philosophical  accuracy  and  depth  of  thought,  and  that 
mathematics  and  philosophy  are  sisters,  has,  I  hope, 
disappeared.  With  the  exception  of  the  all-powerful 
Leibnitz,  great  mathematicians,  such  as  Euler,  D' Alembert 
and  even  Newton,  have  been  poor  philosophers.  The 
French  have  obtained  more  and  greater  mathematical 
than  philosophical  prizes  :  great  masters  of  numbers  and 
great  mechanicians  have  been  frequently  found  among  th 
people,  but  equally  great  philosophers  never ;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  powerful  and  profound  philosophers,  after  the 
most  arduous  endeavours,  have  frequently  remained  but 
indifferent  mathematicians.  Among  children  we  find 
Bome   open   to   philosophical   instruction,   some   only   to 


CHAP,  in.]  LEV  ANA.  .^79 

raathematical.  This  jndgment.  of  experience  is  explained 
and  verified  by  Kant's  Critique.  The  mathematician  con- 
templates quantities,  the  j  philosopher  reflects  upon  and 
abstracts  from  them.  The  certainty  of  the  former  is,  likn, 
that  of  the  external  world,  a  present  reality,  brought 
about  by  no  logical  conclusion  :  it  cam  ot  prove  any  thing, 
but  nierely  show  that  it  is  so ;  and  if  the  quantities 
exceed  the  power  of  instantaneous  apprehension  (as  is 
generally  the  case  even  in  the  simplest  arithmetic)  they 
are  proved  in  a  merely  mechanical  manner  by  the 
method.*  In  philosophy  there  is  no  such  conviction  by 
the  truth  of  the  method,  but  onl}^  by  perceiving  the  truth 
of  the  idea.  Malebranche  sa'd  rightly,  the  geometricia«i 
does  not  love  truth,  but  the  discernment  of  it  (1.  i.  ch.  2.); 
or,  to  express  it  more  clearly,  not  its  existence,  but  its 
proportions.  Philosophy,  on  the  contrary,  will  search 
into  existence ;  it  places  itself  and  the  mathematician — 
which  is  what  he  is  incapable  of  doing — the  whole  Avorld 
within,  around  and  above,  before  its  gaze.  Hence  religion 
and  ptietry,  but  not  dead  mathematics,  spread  living 
fibree  far  and  deep  into  philosophy ;  hence  the  great 
Kant  admitted  the  possibility  that  the  sciences  of  number 
and  measurement,  as  exponents  of  earthly  time  and 
observation,  might  have  no  more  truth  beyond  this  life, 
whereas  he  never  supposed  this  to  be  possible  with  regard 
to  the  ideas  of  reason  and  morality. 

§  133. 

The  former  paragraph,  with  its  distinction  of  mathe- 
matics from  philosophy,  is  meant  to  introduce  nothing 
but  the  praise  of  Pestalozzi's  method  of  teaching,  which 
leads  the  child's  mind  straight  between  the  parallels  of 
numbers  and  lines-t      For  in  what  other  manner  can  you 

*  I  at  once  perceive  that  2x2=4;  but  confidence  in  the  rule 
makes  me  believe  that  319  x  5011  =  1598o09. 

t  I  have  read  nothing  about  Pestalozzi  but  himself,  except  the  little 
that  reviewing  critics  have  extracted  from  his  critioisers  :  yet  his 
**  Lienhard  und  Gertrud  "  already  unnounred  the  antidote-dispt-nsur 
of  his  age;  and  long  may  he  remain  and  find  a  goodly  number  ot 
apprentioee,  master  workman  as  he  is !    In  "  Die  uusiciitbure  Lege 


380  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEbnlCH   RICHTER.        [fRAG.  VII. 

arouse  the  innate  desire  of  mental  progress?  The 
impulses  of  the  senses  excite  and  then  stupefy,  but  help 
not  to  produce  it.  To  overwhelm  the  mind  with  lessons, 
that  is  with  mere  summaries  of  accounts,  resembles  the 
Siberian  custom  of  giving  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's 
Supper  to  infants  :  to  teach  reflection  and  abstraction  is, 
in  fact,  to  tear  the  body  to  pieces,  and  lay  open  the 
springs  of  love  and  faith  in  order  to  anatomize  the  child's 
heart  and  blood.  Moreover,  philosophy  begins  with  what 
is  highest  and  most  difficult ;  mathematics  with  what  is 
nearest  and  easiest.  What  then  remains?  The  meta- 
physics of  the  eye  ;  the  knowledge  forming  the  boundary 
between  experience  and  abstraction ;  that  cool,  tranquil 
calculation  which  does  not  yet  enquire  about  the  three 
giant  rulers  of  knowledge — God,  the  Universe,  and  our 
own  Soul ;  which  rewards  every  momentary  sowing  with 
a  harvest ;  which  neither  excites  nor  represses  desires  and 
wishes,  and  yet  finds  on  every  spot  of  earth,  as  in  a  copy 
book,  examples  and  exercises ;  which,  unlike  thought  and 
poetry,  needs  fear  no  difference  of  result  from  differences 
in  heart  and  mind ;  and  for  which  no  child  is  too  young, 
for  it,  like  him,  grows  up  from  the  smallest  beginning. 

Therefore  Pestalozzi's  gradual  and  luminous  accumula- 
tion of  arithmetical  and  geometrical  proportions  is  right :  it 
is  teaching  to  carry  an  increasing  weight,  like  Milo's  calf,* 
which  may  at  last  serve  for  the  thank-offering  of  an  Archi- 
medes. What  Pope  Sixtus  V.  roughly  said,  "  that,  after 
all,  asses  might  be  taught  arithmetic,"  and  the  well-known 
remark  in  the  French  Encyclopaedia,  that  some  imbecile 
persons  have  learnt  to  play  chess  well — for  chess  is  a 
mathematical  combination,  and  the  chess-board  may  serve 
as  a  test  of  mathematical  power — all  this  commends  the 
wisdom  by  which  Pestalozzi  wrote  over  life,  as  Plato  over 
his  study,  *'  The  geometrician  alone  may  enter  here." 

Consequently,  the  reproaches  cast  against  the  Swiss, 
"  that  his  school  is  no  school  of  the  prophets,  nor  even  ot 

(v.  complete  works  of  J.  P.  Eichter,  vol.  ii.  2n(i  edition,  pp.  119,  120) 
the  advantage  of  mathematics  over  philosophy  as  a  means  of  training 
was  recognised  some  time  before  Pestalozzi. 

*  The  athlete  Milo,  by  daily  carrying  a  growing  cal^  became  at  last 
fstzong  enough  to  carry  the  full-grown  ox. 


OHAP.  in. J  LEVANA.  381 

philosophers,"  are,  in  fact,  eulogies;  and  it  were  to  be 
regretted  if  he  could  show  the  falsity  of  the  reproaches. 
Our  hazy  and  inconstant  age,  fuller  of  dreams  than  of 
poems,  of  phantasms  than  of  imagination,  has  great  need 
of  the  clear,  accurate  eye  of  mathematics  and  of  firm  hold 
upon  reality. 

And  what,  then,  has  it  done  towards  the  development  of 
the  mental  faculties  ?  A  great  thing  in  childhood  :  it  has 
unfolded  the  power  of  adaptive  combination.  Since  the 
simple  beam  of  mental  activity  has  been  already  broken 
into  the  colours  of  many  intellectual  powers,  it  may  be 
permitted  me  to  name  one  more.  I  mean  that  power 
which  is  as  different  from  imagination,  which  only 
partially  embraces  a  subject,  as  from  fancy,  which  creates ; 
that  power  winch  assists  the  philosopher  in  his  chains  of 
reasoning,  the  mathematician  in  his  calculations,  and 
every  inventor  in  his  efforts,  by  retaining  in  connection 
and  presenting  in  order,  the  daily  increasing  masses  of 
ideas,  numbers,  lines  and  images.  The  pupil  of  Pestalozzi 
exercises  no  creative  power  in  his  long  numerical  equa- 
tions {that  belongs  only  to  the  discoverer  of  the  method) 
but  he  calls  into  play  his  faculties  of  examining  and 
surveying.  'J'hese  are  capable  of  Unlimited  growth  :  but 
what  would  Newton,  the  mathematical  pole-star,  have 
become  in  an  ocean  of  books?  Piobably  as  incomprehen- 
sible to  others  in  their  best  years,  as  he  was  to  himself  in 
his  old  age!  If  many  measure  the  course  of  ideas  by 
seconds ; — Bonnet  required  half  a  second  for  a  clear  idea, 
Chladen  only  three  thirds  to  recall  an  old  one,  according 
to  Haller  8  Physiology  ; — they  seem  only  to  reckon  in  that 
the  mental  perusal  of  ])reviously  impressed  thoughts  ;  for 
is  it  possible  to  mark  thought,  to  divide  the  soft  breath  of 
heaven  into  waves  ?  And  is  not  the  vastest  idea—  God,  or 
the  Universe — as  truly  an  instantaneous  flash  of  light  as 
the  poorest  idea,  even  nothing? 

The  strengthening  of  the  power  in  question  might 
afterwards  be  renewed  with  advantage  to  many  sciences. 
In  bome  cases,  for  instance,  what  great  advantage  would 
be  gained  from  having  thoroughly  understood,  and  being 
able  to  recall,  the  various  parts  of  a  watch — from  such  as 
wei©  the  playthings  of  our  childhood   to  the  accurato 


382  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICii  KICHTER.        [fRAG.  VII. 

repeater  of  half-quarters — the  masterly  echo  of  time.  This 
power  may  be  prepared  for  the  most  opposite  efforts  by 
means  of  two  very  different  sciences;  by  astronomy,  for 
the  comprehension  of  vast  masses ;  by  anatomy,  for  that 
of  the  smallest  portions  of  matter  :  the  latter  requires  an 
unexpectedly  great  effort,  for  it  is  physically  as  difficult 
either  for  the  finger  or  the  eye  to  embrace  the  smallest  as 
the  largest  object. 

The  power  we  are  speaking  of  may  also  be  strengthened 
by  gradually  compressing  a  long  historical  or  philosophical 
paragraph  into  an  epigram.  For  instance,  suppose  this 
to  be  the  sentence  :  "  Popular  authors  do  not  make  a 
selection  among  their  thoughts,  but  write  them  down  as 
they  arise,  just  as,  in  most  states,  the  monarchs  are  not 
elected,  but  rule  in  order  of  birth."  You  might  compress 
it  thus :  "  Popular  authors  do  not  permit  their  ideas  to 
rule  according  to  the  choice  of  reason,  but  according  to  the 
natural  succession  of  birth."  And  you  might  conclude  it 
proverbially  thus :  "  In  the  popular  brain  the  empire  of 
ideas  is  hereditary,  not  elective."  Of  course,  this  only 
applies  in  the  education  of  children ;  for  to  educated 
readers  such  brevity  would  be  wearisome. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

DEVELOPMENT   OF   WIT. 
§    134. 


"  Until  the  human  body  is  developed,  every  artificial  de- 
velopment of  the  mind  is  injurious.  Philosophical  strain- 
ings of  the  understanding,  poetical  ones  of  the  fancy, 
destroy  those  very  faculties  in  the  young  mind,  and  others 
along  with  them.  But  the  development  of  wit,  which  is 
scarcely  ever  thought  of  for  children,  is  the  least  hurtful, 
because  its  efforts  are  easy  and  momentary;  the  most 
useful,  because  it  compels  the  new  machinery  of  ideas  to 
quicker  motion;  because,  by  the  pleasure  of  discovery, 
it  gives  increased  power  of  command  over  those  ideas 


CHAP.  IV.  J  LEV  ANA.  383 

and  because  in  early  years,  this  quality,  either  in  our- 
selves or  others,  particularly  delights  by  its  brilliancy. 
Why  are  there  so  few  inventors,  and  so  many  learned  men, 
whose  heads  contain  nothing  but  immoveable  furniture, 
in  which  the  ideas  peculiar  to  each  science  lie  separately 
as  in  monks'  cells,  so  that  when  their  possessor  writes 
about  one  science,  he  remembers  nothing  that  he  knows 
about  the  rest  ?  Why  ?  Solely  because  children  arc 
taught  more  ideas  than  command  over  those  ideas,  and 
because  in  school  they  are  expected  to  have  their 
thoughts  as  immoveably  fixed  as  their  persons. 

"  Schlozer's  historical  style  should  be  imitated  in  other 
sciences.  I  have  accustomed  my  Gustavus  to  hear  and  to 
understand,  and  so  himself  to  discover,  the  resemblances 
among  dissimilar  sciences.  For  instance,  all  great  or 
heavy  things  move  slowly ;  hence  Oriental  monai  chs,  the 
Dalai-Lama,  the  ^^un,  do  not  move  at  all.  A\  inckelmann 
tells  us  that  the  wise  Greeks  walked  slowly ;  also  the  hour 
finger  of  a  clock,  the  ocean,  and  the  clouds  in  fine  weather 
move  slowly.  Again,  men,  the  earth  and  pendulums  go 
quicker  in  winter.  Or,  again,  the  name  of  Jehovah,  of 
eastern  princes,  and  of  li'ome's  guardian  deity,  as  well  as 
the  Sybilline  books,  the  most  ancient  Christian  and  the 
Catholic  Bible,  and  the  Veda,  were  concealed.  It  is  in- 
describable what  great  readiness  and  pliability  of  thought 
children  thus  attain.  Of  course  the  information  which 
you  wish  to  combine  must  first  be  in  the  head.  But 
enough!  the  pedant  understands  and  does  not  approve; 
find  the  less  prejudiced  reader  also  says.  Enough  ! " 

This  paragraph  follows  some  introductory  arguments  in 
the  invisible  Lodge,  book  i.  p.  131. 

§  135. 

After  the  severe  rule  and  lesson-time  of  mathematics  the 
sans-culottish  freedom  and  play-time  of  wit  best  follows ; 
and  if  the  former,  like  the  Neptunist,  forms  all  things 
coldly  and  slowly,  the  latter,  like  the  Vulcanist,  ascribes 
to  them  a  rapid  and  fiery  origin.  The  glance  of  wit  passes 
over  long  and  dark  series  of  ideas,  acquired  by  the  ])ower 
of  preliminary  education,  in  oider  afterwards  to  create. 


384  JEAN  PAUL   FKIEDKICH   EICHTER.       [FRAG.  VIL 

The  first  efforts  of  intellectual  growth  are  witty.  And 
the  passage  from  geometry  to  the  electric  art  of  wit, 
as  Lichtenberg,  Kastner,  D'Alembert  and  the  French 
in  general,  prove,  is  a  natural  and  an  easy,  rather  than 
a  forced  march.  The  Spartans,  Cato,  Seneca,  Tacitus, 
Bacon,  Young,  Lessing,  Lichtenberg,  are  examples  how  the 
full ,  heavy,  thunder-clouds  of  knowledge  break  out  in  the 
lightning  of  wit.  Every  discovery  is  at  first  an  incidence  ; 
and  from  this  moving  point  is  developed  a  progressive 
living  form.  The  intellectual  effort  doubles  and  trebles 
itself;  one  witty  idea  produces  another,  as  the  new-born 
Diana  assisted  at  the  birth  of  her  twin  brother  Apollo. 

§  136. 

It  is  easier  to  perceive  that  wit  precedes  reflection  and 
imagination  in  the  nursery  and  the  schoolroom,  than  to 
see  how  to  produce  it.  The  great  majority  of  teachers 
will  object  that  they  do  not  themselves  possess  it,  and 
that  it  is  very  difficult  to  imitate  the  French  language- 
master  who  helped  out  his  German  pupils  with  their 
German  and  yet  knewnothing  of  it.  Niemeyer  recommends 
for  this  purpose  charades  and  anagrams — but  these  only 
serve  for  reflection  upon  language ; — and  riddles — which, 
though  better,  are  yet  but  witty  definitions  ; — and  games 
in  company,  the  majority  of  which,  however,  tend  to 
excite  a  spirit  of  rational  talking  rather  than  wit.  But 
can  no  witty  poems,  no  witty  anecdotes,  no  play  upon 
words,  be  discovered?  And  is  it  not  at  first  an  easy 
matter  to  let  children  seek  moral  resemblances  in  phj^sical 
substances,  until  their  pinions  have  grown  sufficiently 
strong  to  reach  from  mental  to  bodily  resemblances? 
(  Vide  my  Introduction  to  Esthetics,  ii.) 

The  author  once  presided  for  three  years  over  a  small 
school  comprising  ten  children  of  his  friends  ;  the  best 
head  among  his  pupils,  of  different  ages  and  sexes,  had 
only  mastered  Cornelius  Nepos.  So,  along  with  the  Latin 
language,  German,  French  and  English  had  to  be  begun, 
as  well  as  the  so-called  practical  sciences.  The  diaries  of 
this  eccentric  school— during  whose  holiday  hours  the 
Invisible   Lodge    and    Hesperus   were   composed— along 


CHAP.  IV.]  LEV  ANA.  385 

with  the  confession  of  all  his  mistaken  views,  belong  to 
the  account  of  the  author's  life  hereafter  to  be  published. 
But  what  follows  will  find  its  right  place  here.  After 
half  a  year's  daily  instruction  for  five  hours,  in  the  repe- 
titions of  which  such  witty  resemblances  as  accident 
offered  were  sought,  and  during  which  the  children  had 
the  Spartan  permission  to  attack  one  another, —  by  which 
means  when  out  of  school  they  were  preserved  from  the 
German  fault  of  over-sensitiveness, — the  author,  to  en- 
courage the  children  and  confirm  the  habit,  made  a 
manuscript  book,  entitled  "  Anthology  of  my  Pupils* 
Bon-mots,"  in  which  he  wrote  in  their  presence  every 
idea  of  a  not  merely  local  character.     A  few  examples 

Xnay  serve  to  show  his  method.      A   boy,  G ,  twelve 

years  old,  the  cleverest  of  the  children,  endowed  with 
mathematical  and  satirical  talents,  said  as  follows: — 
**  Man  is  imitated  by  four  things,  an  echo,  a  shadow,  an 
ape,  and  a  mirror ; — the  windpipe,  the  bigoted  Spaniards, 
and  ants,  suffer  no  foreign  substance  within  their  limits, 
but  drive  it  out; — the  air-bag  of  the  whale,  out  of  which 
it  breathes  when  under  water,  is  the  water  stomach  of 
the  camel,  whence  it  drinks  when  there  is  no  other  water ; 
— the  concealment  of  the  Greeks  in  the  Trojan  horse 
was  a  living  transmigration  of  souls ; — when  calculations 
become  longer,  logarithms  must  be  made  of  logarithms ; — 
mercury  is  poison,  and  the  mythological  Mercury  con- 
ducted Bouis  both  into  heaven  and  hell,"  &c.  &c.  The 
same  boj^'s  younger  brother,  ten  and  a  half  years  old, 
said, — "God  is  the  only  perpetuum  mobile; — the  Hun- 
garians preserve  both  their  wine  and  their  beehives  in  the 
earth; — Constantinople  looks  beautiful  from  a  distance, 
but  ugly  when  near,  and  it  stands  upon  seven  hills ;  so 
the  planet  Venus  shines  gloriously  from  a  distance,  but 
on  approaching  nearer  you  find  it  uneven  and  full  of 
steep  mountains,"  (fee.  <fec.  His  sister,  seven  years  old, 
said, — "Every  night  we  are  seized  with  apoplexy,  but  in 
the  morning  we  are  well  again ; — the  world  is  the  body 
of  God  ; — when  the  pulse  beats  quickly  we  are  ill ;  when 
slowly,  well :  so  when  the  clouds  move  fast,  they  betoken 
foul  weather;  when  slowly,  fair  weather; — when  the 
Spartans  were  in  battle  they  wore  red  cloaks,  so  that  the 
I.  .  2  c 


386  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   EICHTER.      [fRAG.  VH. 

blood  might  not  be  seen ;  and  certain  Italians  wear  black 
ones,  so  that  you  may  not  see  the  fleas ; — my  school  is  a 
Quaker's  meeting-house  where  every  one  may  speak  ; — 
the  stupidest  people  dress  themselves  the  most  showily , 
so  the  stupidest  animals,  insects,  are  the  gaudiest,"  &g. 
Sometimes  there  were  several  fathers  and  mothers  to  the 
same  idea ;  one  spark  drew  out  the  rest  too  quickly,  and 
then  they  all  justly  insisted  on  a  community  of  honour  in 
the  "  Anthology  of  Bon-mots." 

Slavishness  darkens  and  hides  all  the  salt-springs  of 
wit ;  hence  those  teachers  who,  like  weak  princes,  can 
only  maintain  their  position  by  the  censorship  of  the 
press  will  probably  do  wisely  to  choose  walks,  and  leave 
the  children  at  liberty  in  order  to  make  them  witty. 
The  writer  of  the  "  Anthology  of  Bon-mots  "  permitted 
his  scholars  to  exercise  their  wit  upon,  but  not  against, 
himself. 

A  learned  gentleman*  fears  danger  to  the  sense  of 
truth  from  these  exercises  of  the  wit,  though  he  has  no 
fault  to  find  w  ith  the  things  themselves ;  but  if  so,  he 
must  also  dread  that  something  better  —  sentiment  — 
which  takes  the  place  of  truth  in  our  dark  age,  will  be 
falsified  by  the  forms  of  speech  which  teach  and  analyse 
its  expression  and  its  cause.  And  for  what  reason  shall 
witty  similes  be  held  incompatible  with  truth,  as  if  they 
also  did  not  really,  though  not  so  obviously,  illustrate  it  ? 
We  do  not  recommend  children  any  Olj^mpic  games  of 
wit  but  such  as  are  German  ;  and  the  northern  nature 
itself  is  so  excellent  a  check  to  all  over-excitement,  that 
even  a  German  university  could  redress  the  balance  of 
the  strong  and  pungent  wit  of  two  such  men  as  Kastner 
and  Lichtenberg,  and  learnedly  held  out  against  them  in 
the  learned  journal  of  Gottingen. 

*  A  reviewer  of  Levana  in  the  "Gottinger  Gelehrte-Anzeige,"  a 
literary  journal  so  called,  and  still  published  at  Gottingen. 


CHAP.  V.J  LUVAUA.  387 


CHAPTER  V. 

OEVELOPMKNT   OF    REFLECTION,    ABSTRACTIO>f,    AND   SELF-KNOW 
LEDGE;     TOGKTHEll     WITH     AN     EXTRA    PARAGRAPH    ON     THB 
POWERS   OF   ACTION    AND   BUSINESS. 

§  137. 

I  MAY  be  most  brief  about  what  is  most  important; 
for  time  and  libraries  are  sufficiently  prolix  about  it. 
The  reflective  contemplation  of  self  which  conceals  and 
annihilates  the  external  and  superterrene  universe  by 
guiding  and  lowering  man  into  his  own  inner  world,  now 
finds  its  mining  ladders  in  every  book  shop.  Moreover 
our  modern  life,  broken  up  into  particles  by  the  search 
after  pleasure,  and  destitute  of  any  great,  active  aims  U 
unite  mind  and  matter,  is  enough,  without  further 
cause,  to  make  every  one  live  within  himself,  and  forget 
the  universe  until  some  shock  to  his  nerves  of  feeling 
painfully  reminds  him  of  existence.  If  any  men  of  the 
present  age  be  of  a  poetical  nature  life  quickly  becomes 
a  desert  to  them,  in  whose  undulating  air,  as  in  that  of 
other  deserts,  objects  appear  both  wavering  and  gigantic. 
If  they  be  of  a  philosophical  disp(jsition  they  fancy  the 
ideal  garden-ladder  against  which  they  lean  to  be  a  fruit 
tree,  its  dead  steps  living  branches,  and  mount"nz  them 
to  be  gathering  fruit.  Hence  self-destruction  soon  follows 
the  philosophical  destruction  of  the  world.  Hence  there 
are  more  lunatics  and  fewer  poets  than  formerly :  the 
philosopher  and  the  madman  ceaselessly  point  with  the 
left-hand  index  finger  to  the  right  hand,  and  cry  out 
"Object— Subject!" 

Consequently,  in  philosophical  and  poetical  natures, 
always  endeavour  to  postpone  the  reflecting  observation 
of  self  until  the  glowing  season  of  the  passions,  so  that 
the  child  may  gamer  and  preserve  a  fresh,  steadfast  and 
earnest  life. 

Children  of  common  and  merely  active  dispositions, 
who  do  not  so  readily  lose  sight  of  the  outer  works  of 
the  world,  may  bo  advanced  five  years  earlier,  by  the 

2  c  2 


388-  JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDEICH  EICHTER.      [fRAG,  VII.} 

wheels  of  logic,  physiology  and  transcendental  philosophy, 
into  the  citadel  of  the  sonl,  so  that  they  may  learn  thence 
to  contemplate  their  course  of  life.  The  inner  world  is 
the  remedy  or  antidote  for  the  man  of  business ;  as  the 
external  universe  is  for  the  philosopher.  Poetry,  as  the 
happy  union  of  both  worlds,  promotes  the  higher  welfare 
of  both;  as,  by  it,  that  healthful  reflection  and  abstraction 
are  attained  which  raise  man  above  want  and  time  to  a 
nobler  view  of  life. 

§  138. 

This  is  a  suitable  place  to  speak  of  the  development  of 
the  faculties  for  business,  the  sense  of  the  man  of  the 
world,  which,  in  contradistinction  to  reflection,  is  a  me- 
diator between  matter  and  mind;  but  it  serves  to  mix 
rather  than  to  combine  them  indissolubly.  This  sense  for 
the  objects  of  sense,  this  presence  of  mind  for  what  is  ex- 
ternally present,  a  quality  so  gloriously  perfect  in  heroes, 
creates  or  annihilates  things  by  the  quickest  combinations 
of  such  dissimilar  materials  as  external  and  internal 
observations,  or  sensations  and  ideas,  by  a  simultaneous 
exercise  of  comprehension,  foresight  and  physical  power. 
Like  the  two-headed  eagle  in  the  fable,  which  watched 
with  one  head  while  it  took  nourishment  with  the  other, 
the  man  of  the  world  must  look  at  once  within  and  with- 
out, unblinded  by  what  is  within,  unalarmed  by  what  is 
without ;  and  he  must  stand  upon  a  point  which,  though 
he  himself  move,  yet  never  alters  the  circle  nor  changes 
its  position. 

But  it  is  difficult  to  provide  a  palaestra  for  the  develop- 
ment of  this  power  suited  to  boys ;  they  must  contend 
with  the  only  world  they  have  about  them — that  of  edu- 
cation. It  is  not  a  fighting  school  they  must  pass  through 
—for  as  yet  they  should  have  no  enemies^ — but  they  may 
run  a  practising  gauntlet  against  what  lies  in  their  way, 
and  war  upon  things,  not  men.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
the  teacher  may  find  them  the  needful  opportunities. 


OHAP.  VI.]  LEVANA.  889 


CHAPTER  VI. 

ON  THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  RECOLLECTION — NOT  OF  THE 
MEMORY. 

§  139. 

The  difference  between  recollection  and  memorj'^  is 
insisted  upon  by  moralists  more  than  by  writers  on  edu- 
cation. Memory,  a  receptive  not  a  creative  faculty,  is 
Bubjected  to  physical  conditions  more  than  all  other 
mental  powers ;  for  every  kind  of  weakness  (direct  and 
indirect,  as  well  bleeding  as  intoxication)  impairs  it,  and 
dreams  interrupt  it ;  it  is  not  subject  to  the  will,  is 
possessed  by  us  in  common  with  the  beasts  ;*  and  can  be 
most  effectually  strengthened  by  the  physician :  a  bitter 
Btomachic  will  increase  it  more  than  a  whole  dictionary 
learnt  by  heart.  For  if  it  gained  strength  by  what  it 
receives,  it  would  grow  with  increasing  years,  that  is,  in 
proportion  to  its  wealth  in  hoarded  names;  but  it  can 
carry  the  heaviest  burdens  most  easily  in  unpractised 
youth,  and  it  holds  those  so  firmly  that  they  appear  above 
the  grey  hairs  of  age  as  the  evergreens  of  childhood, ' 

§140. 

On  the  contrary,  recollection,  the  creative  power,  as  free 
to  call  forth  or  to  discover  a  consequence  from  the  given 
ideas  of  memory,  as  wit  or  imagination  are  from  their  own 
stores;  this  exercise  of  the  will  denied  to  beasts,  which 
belongs  chiefly  to  the  mind,  and  therefore  grows  with  its 
growth;  this  faculty  comes  within  the  sphere  of  the 
educator.  Hence,  memory  can  be  iron,  recollection  only 
quicksilver,  and  the  graving-tool  acts  corrosively  only  on 
the  former.  The  division  of  this  power  into  memory  for 
words  and  memory  for  things  is,  therefore,  erroneous,  at 
least  in  expression.     He  who  can  retain  in  his  head  a  page 

•  During  moulting  (a  disorder  of  birds)  the  bull-finrh  forgets  his 
8ong,  and  the  hawk  his  cunning  :  just  as  at  au  earlier  stage  each  loses 
his  nature  through  a  debilitating  want  of  sleep. 


390  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDBICHr  RICHTEK.      ^FRAG.  VH.) 

of  Hottentot  words  will  certainly  much  more  eaj^ily  retain 
a  volume  of  Kant ;  for  either  he  understands  it — and  then 
every  idea  calls  up  an  associated  idea  more  readily  than 
a  word  can  a  perfectly  dissimilar  word — or  he  does  not 
understand  it ;  and  then  he  merely  retains  a  philosophical 
vocabulary,  and  uses  it  as  well  in  every  disputation,  or 
for  every  combination,  as  many  renowned  students  of  the 
Critique  already  prove.  But  memory  for  things  does  not 
]>resuppose  mnmorj^  for  names ;  but  only  because  instead 
of  b«^■!^.ng  called  memory  for  things  it  ought  to  be  called 
rt  collection. 

Kecollection,  like  every  other  mental  power,  can  only 
work  according  to  the  laws  of  association  ;  not  sounds,  but 
things,  that  is  to  say,  thoughts,  educate.  Kead  a  volume 
of  history  to  a  boy,  and  compare  the  copious  abstract  he 
can  furnish  of  that  with  the  miserable  remnant  he  could 
collect  from  a  page  of  Humboldt's  Mexican  words  which 
you  had  read  aloud  to  him.  Plattner  remarks  in  his 
Anthropology  that  things  merely  in  juxtaposition  are 
retained  with  more  difficulty  than  things  coming  in 
sequence  :  an  animal,  as  it  seems  to  me,  would  experience 
the  very  reverse ;  and  for  this  reason  :  memory  applies  to 
juxtaposition,  recollection  to  sequence,  because  it,  and  not, 
the  mrmer,  excites  to  mental  activity  by  causation,  or 
some  other  association  of  ideas.  Pythagoras  recommended 
his  pupils  each  evening  to  recall  the  events  of  the  day,  not 
solely  as  an  act  of  self-mortification,  but  also  as  a  means 
of  strengthening  the  recollection.  Kalov  knew  the  whole 
Bible  by  heart;  Barthius,  when  but  in  his  ninth  year, 
Terence ;  Sallust,  Demosthenes ;  and  Scaliger  learned 
Homer  in  twenty-one  days :  but  then  these  are  books  full 
of  intimately  associated  words,  not  mere  dictionaries;  a 
whole  library  with  all  its  volumes  is  easier  to  retain — for 
the  connection  assists  the  recollection — than  a  short  list  of 
them.  When  D'Alembert  makes  the  easy  retention  of  a 
poem  a  proof  of  its  excellence,  hs  position  loses  something 
of  novelty,  but  gains  in  truth  by  the  versus  memoriales, 
mnemonic  verses,  and  the  laws  of  the  ancient  lawgivers 
promulgated  in  verse.  He,  in  other  words,  observes  that 
the  recollection  is  assisted  by  the  close  connection  of 
the  parts,  a  quality  peculiarly  possessed  by  good  poems. 


CHAP.  VI.]  LEVANA.  391 

Hence  the  Abbe  Delille  rightly  regards  his  poems  as  better 
than,  for  instance,  his  translated  oiiginals;  not  only 
because  he  has  them  in  his  mind  before  he  transcribes 
them,  and  so  can  sell  the  publisher  his  manus-ript  full  of 
the  final  rhymes,  to  which  he  aftei-wards  attaches  the  rest 
of  the  verse,  —  but  also  because  he  cannot  remember  much  of 
Milton  or  Virgil,  although  he  has  read  both  several  times. 

'J'o  strengthen  the  combining  power  of  the  recollection, 
accustom  your  children  from  their  earliest  years  to  relate 
to  you  some  passage  in  history,  or  a  tale;  and  for  this 
purpose  the  most  diffusely  told  story  is  the  best.  Fur- 
ther, if  you  wish  your  child  to  advance  rapidly,  both  in 
a  foreign  language  and  in  power  of  recollection,  do  not 
set  him  to  learn  words,  but  a  chapter  which  he  has  trans- 
lated a  few  times :  here  recollection  assists  the  memory ; 
words  are  remarked  in  their  verbal  connection,  and  the 
best  dictionary  is  a  favourite  book. 

It  is  more  difficult  to  remember  a  single  thing  than 
many  joined  together.  The  example  of  Lessing,  who  always 
devoted  himself  exclusively  for  a  time  to  one  particular 
branch  of  knowledge,  proves  the  truth  of  Locke's  remark, 
that  the  way  to  become  learned  is  to  pursue  one  subject 
only  for  a  considerable  period.  The  reason  lies  in  the 
systematic  nature  of  the  recollection ;  it  is  certain  that  a 
science  will  adhere  more  closely  which  has  had  time  to 
spread  its  roots  in  the  soil.  Hence  nothing  so  much  en- 
feebles the  recollection  as  leaps  from  one  branch  of  the  tree 
of  knowledge  to  another ;  as  men  become  forgetful  who 
have  the  management  of  several  dissimilar  offices.  Tjct 
your  child  pursue  one  and  the  same  branch  of  knowledge 
uninterruptedly  for  a  month ;  what  a  probability  of 
growth  in  twelve  branches  during  the  year  !  The  dislike 
of  the  sameness  will  soon  be  lost  in  the  pleasure  of  progress ; 
and  the  science  thus  grounded  and  daily  increasing  its 
limits  will  in  time  present  a  variety  of  flowers.  C'ertainly 
the  foundations  of  every  science  should  be  laid  and  worked 
upon  for  sometime  without  the  intermixture  of  any  other  ;* 

*  Even  in  mechanical  handwriting  a  month's  practice  in  large  hand 
is  desirable  —  interrupted  by  no  running-hand :  so  that  tlie  more 
firmly  acquired  cliuracter  may  better  witbiataud  the  luter  detriments  of 


392  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH    BICHTER.      [fRAG.  VII. 

then  a  new  one  may  be  commenced,  and  the  other  re- 
peated for  a  change ;  and  thus  we  may  proceed,  until, 
after  the  careful  erection  of  the  scaffolding,  we  may  begin 
the  building,  and  not  till  many  of  these  are  completed  can 
a  street  be  formed.  For  a  contemporaneous  multiplicity 
of  sciences  is  not  adapted  to  early  youth,  which  is  only 
capable  of  embracing  an  individual  subject, — but  to 
maturer  age,  which  can  compare  them  together. 

Kecollection  by  association  of  place — falsely  called 
memoria  localis — this  play-room  of  the  so-called  arts  of 
memory — shows  the  necessity  of  connection.  For  this 
reason  travelling  enfeebles  local  recollection.  A  prison, 
said  a  Frenchman,  is  a  memoria  localis;  and  many,  Bassom- 
pierre  for  example,  have  therein  written  their  memoirs 
solely  on  the  walls — of  the  skull. 

§  141. 

But  there  is  one  mental  talisman  even  for  the  memory 
— I  mean  the  charm  of  the  object.  A  woman  retains  the 
titles  of  b(;oks  with  as  much  difficulty  as  her  learned 
husband  does  the  names  of  fashionable  dresses;  an  old 
philologist,  oblivious  of  other  things,  does  not  suffer  an 
unknown  word  that  adds  to  his  word-treasures  to  escape 
him. 

No  one  has  a  memory  for  every  thing,  because  no  one 
feels  an  interest  in  every  thing.  And  the  physical  powers 
set  bounds  even  to  the  strengthening  influence  of  desire 
on  the  memory — think  of  that  when  with  children  : — for 
instance,  if  a  Hebrew  bill  of  exchange  for  a  thousand 
pounds  were  promised,  on  condition  of  demanding  its 
payment  in  the  very  words  of  the  document,  as  once  read 
alodd,  everybody  would  try  to  remember  them,  but  unless 
he  were  a  Jew,  the  words  and  the  form  would  fail  him. 

If  grown-up  people  find  italics  and  German-text  useful 
to  li^ark  their  memoranda,  I  should  think  it  possible  that 
little  children  also  might  require  some  such  assistance. 
But  teachers  ply  them  with  uninterrupted  notation,  and 
then,  when  they  have  printed  whole  books  (or  lessons)  in 
italic  and  German-text,  ask,  with  wonder,  "whether  it  is 
possible  a  thing  can  be  overlooked,  when  printed  in  different 


CHAP.  VI.J  LrVANA.  393 

or  large  text  ?  "     Permit  something  to  be  forgotten,  when 
you  desire  them  to  remem])er  so  much. 

Kesemblance,  the  rudder  of  recollection,  is  the  dangerous 
rock  of  memory.  Among  related  objects  only  one  can 
exert  the  charm  of  novelty  or  priority.  Thus,  the  correct 
spelling  of  very  similar  words,  such  as  ahnen  (to  forbode), 
ahnden  (to  revenge) ;  malen  (to  paint),  mahlen  (to  grind) ; 
das  (the)  and  doss  (that)  ;  Katheder  (professor's  chair),  and 
catheter  (although  the  last  two  are  found  occasionally 
together),  is  more  difficult  than  that  of  totally  different 
ones.  There  are  few  aged  men  who  remain  at  home  and 
are  able  to  remember  or  relate  the  little  circumstances  of 
their  monotonous  life  for  a  fortnight :  by  the  constant  re- 
currence of  the  daily  echo  the  historj^  of  their  lives  is  as 
much  shortened  as  life  itself  is  prolonged.  The  history  of 
the  fourth  or  fifth  ten  years  of  life  shrivels  up  into  a  note 
compared  with  the  chapter  on  the  fourth  or  fifth  year. 
An  eternity  might,  at  last,  become  shorter  than  a  moment. 

It  is  incomprehensible  to  me  how  people  fancy  they 
can  teach  children  to  read  or  write  the  letters  easily  by 
pointing  out  their  resemblances,  and  laying  before  them 
at  once  i  y,  c  e,  or,  in  writing,  i  r,  h  k,  &c.  The  very 
opposite  plan  ought  to  be  pursued ;  i  should  be  placed 
next  g,  V  next  z,  o  next  r ;  the  contrast,  like  li^ht  and 
shadow,  make  both  prominent,  until  reflected  lights  and 
half  shades  can  separate  them  anew  from  each  other. 
The  fast- rooted  dissimilarities  serve  at  last  to  hold  fast 
the  resemblance  that  exists  among  them.  So  the  old  plan 
of  teaching  spelling  by  lists  of  words  alphabetically 
arranged  is  bad,  on  account  of  the  difficulty  of  distinguish- 
ing similar  sounds ;  whereas  that  of  classing  together 
derivatives  from  the  same  Latin  or  Greek  word  assists  the 
remembrance,  because  the  radical  word  does  not  alter. 
If  instruction  in  arts  of  memory  had  a  place  in  the  Levana, 
I  might  suggest  the  following  sportive  ftiethods .  daily 
drawing  tickets  in  a  spelling  lottery,  where  each  cliild 
would  not  only  observe  his  own,  but  his  companions' 
words ;  every  pupil  might  each  day  receive  a  foreign  word 
of  parole,  wherewith  to  greet  his  teacher :  or  the  scholar 
tuight  be  set  to  print  a  short  Latin  sentence  with  its 
translation ;  or  he  might  be  t'>ld  to  write  the  same  word 


394  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH   RIGHT ER.        [fRAG.  VII. 

in  various  styles  of  penmanship  :  in  dates,  for  which  these 
methods  are  much  more  necessary  than  for  words,  the 
teacher  might  give  the  years  written  merely  with  conso- 
nants, because  the  addition  of  the  necessary  vowels  would 
impress  the  whole  line  on  the  memory  ;  and  he  might  cut 
.worthless  maps  into  sections,  allow  his  pupils  to  take  them 
home,  and  expect  them  to  be  brought  back  joined  together 
in  the  fashion  of  architectural  games ;  and  so  forth :  it 
were,  indeed,  a  miserable  prospect  if  hundreds  of  such 
arts  did  not  occur  to  the  teacher.  I  myself,  however, 
would  not  choose  any  of  these  proposed  methods  of  catch- 
ing and  3^oking  attention,  but  would  adopt  that  of  down^ 
right  force  and  industry.  I  do  believe  that  a  rod  would 
help  a  creeping  child  to  walk  better  than  crutches  under 
his  arms,  which  at  first  carry  but  afterwards  are  carried 
by  him.  Let  yea  3^ea,  and  nay  nay,  or  warmth  and  fire 
be  your  double  watchword. 

§  142. 

Artemidorus,  the  grammarian,  forgot  every  thing  when 
he  was  terrified.  Fear  cripples  the  memory,  both  by 
producing  physical  weakness  and  mental  iiritation  ;  the 
frost  of  cold  fear  chains  every  living  power  which  it 
approaches.  The  bonds  are  removed  even  from  the 
criminal  when  he  is  to  speak  and  be  judged !  And  yet 
many  teachers  put  fresh  fetters  on  their  pupils  before  they 
hear,  and  threaten  before  they  teach  them.  Do  they 
suppose  the  terrified  soul  can  observe  or  remember  any 
.thing  better  than  the  pain  of  fear,  and  the  blows  of  the 
stick?  Can  the  free  glance  of  the  mental  eye  co-exist 
with  the  abject  slavery  of  the  heart?  Will  the  poor 
sinner  on  the  scafibld  embrace  the  beauties  of  the  sur- 
rounding landscape  and,  in  contemplating  them,  forget 
the  impending  axe  ? 


(     ^5     ) 


EIGHTH  FRAGMENT. 

Chap.  I.  Beauty  limited  to  the  outward  Sense,  §§  143,  144 ;  to  the 
inner  Sense,  §§  145,  146.  Chaf.  II.  Classical  Education,  §§  147, 
148. 


CHAPTER  I. 

DEVELOPMKNT   OF   THE   SENSE   OF   BEAUTY. 
§143. 

I  USE  the  expression  sense  of  beauty  instead  of  taste  ;  taste 
for  the  sublime  sounds  as  badly  as  smeU  for  the  sublime. 
The  French  publish  one  of  the  best  instructions  on  taste 
under  the  title  Almanach  des  Gourmands.  Farther;  the 
sense  of  beauty  is  not  the  same  as  the  instinctive  desire  to 
express  beauty ;  the  development  and  improvement  of  this 
latter  faculty  belongs  properly  to  schools  of  art.  If  your 
boy,  even  in  the  school-room,  be  taught  to  produce  instead 
of  only  to  feel  and  see  beautiful  forms  and  beautiful 
thoughts,  he  is  as  much  spoiled  as  if  he  were  a  father 
before  being  a  lover.  Nothing  is  more  dangerous,  either 
for  art  or  heart,  than  the  premature  expression  of  feeling  ; 
many  a  poetic  genius  has  been  fatally  chilled  by  delicious 
draughts  of  Hippocrene  in  the  warm  season  of  youth.  The 
feelings  of  the  poet,  especially,  should  be  closely  and  coolly 
covered,  and  the  hardest  and  driest  sciences  should  retard 
the  bursting  blossoms  till  the  dtie  spring-time.  Pope,  when 
u  Ixiy,  wrote  poems  of  sentiment ;  when  a  man,  epigrams. 
It  is  said  that  every  clever  man,  such  as  Leibnitz  and 
Kant,  for  instance,  must  have  written  verses  in  his  youth : 
this  may  be  very  true  of  him  who  writes  none  in  mature 
life;  the  philosopher,  the  mathematician,  the  statesman, 
may  begin  where  the  poet  ends,  and  vice  versa  1  Is  the  poet 
the  only  one  who  reveals  the  secret, — the  holiest,  and  the 
tenderest  of  humanity ;  then  mubt  he  guard  and  keep  it 


396  JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDEICH   RICHTER.      [fRAG.  VIII. 

in  the  soul,  as  tenderly  as  if  he  were  the  Blessed  Virgin, 
from  every  carpenter,  until  the  Holy  Spirit  give  her  the 
Son.  Let  the  poet  first,  then,  attain  the  full  stature  of  his 
model  before  he  copies  it.  Let  him,  like  the  beautiful 
white  butterfly,  first  live  on  the  leaves  of  the  schools,  and 
unfold  his  wingS  when  the  flowers  hold  honey. 

§  144. 

Children,  like  women,  always  kindly  disposed  towards 
pedants,  wowld  not  think  it  utterly  ridiculous  if  one 
attempted,  for  instance,  to  instil  into  a  boy  admiration 
for  a  girl's  beautiful  features  by  displaying  drawings  ot 
hideous  noses,  lips  and  necks,  and  along  with  them  beauti- 
ful paintings  of  the  same  parts,  so  that  when  the  young 
man  left  the  school  of  design  he  might  at  once  fall  in  love 
with  a  beautiful  woman  as  judiciously  as  a  simpleton  who 
had  never  been  to  school. 

.  Something  very  similar  is  done  by  those  teachers  who 
try  to  educate  the  sense  of  the  sublime ;  which,  however, 
is  not  increased,  but  diminished,  by  the  given  examples  of 
sublimity.  The  circumnavigator  of  the  world  does  not 
think  the  sea  so  sublime  as  does  his  wife,  who  views  it 
only  from  the  coast ;  the  stars  come  at  last  to  look  smaller 
in  the  naked  eye  of  an  astronomer  than  in  ours. 

In  fact,  men  want  to  educate  every  thing  (themselves 
excepted)  which  will  certainly  educate  itself ;  and  they  do 
this  the  more  earnestly  because  the  result  is  certain  and 
irresistible,  as  in  walking,  seeing,  tasting,  &c. :  but  for  the 
gense  of  artistic  beauty,  which  peculiarly  needs  education, 
schools  are  rarely  built. 

A  child  may  be  conducted  into  the  artistic  realm  ot 
beauties  appreciable  by  the  outward  senses,  such  as  paint- 
ing, music,  architecture,  earlier  than  into  that  of  beauties 
appreciable  only  by  the  mind,  such  as  poetry.  Above  all 
things  educate  the  German  eye,  which  is  so  far  behind  the 
German  ear.  Conceal  from  him  every  distortion  of  shape 
or  drawing — one  might  add  of  the  streets,  if  it  were  possible 
to  hide  the  grotesque  appearance  of  our  houses,  dresses  and 
ornaments,  or  rather  disfigurements — and  surround  his 
beauteous  age  with  beauty.  The  example  of  the  critically 
correct  Italians  proves   that  an  artist's  hand  is  not  th« 


CHAP.  T.  I  LEVANA.  397' 

necessary  accompaniment  of  an  artist's  eye.  Open  a  child's 
eye,  more  than  his  heart,  to  the  beauties  of  nature;  the 
latter  opens  naturally  in  its  proper  season,  and  sees  farther 
and  more  beauties  than  those  you  place  before  it.  Unfor- 
tunately little  can  be  accomplished  in  this  direction  by 
your  unaided  efforts;  only  the  state — which,  however, 
loves  better  to  carve  its  wood  into  parade-beds  than  cradles 
of  art — can  provide  true  education  for  the  eye,  which  is 
best  taught  by  streets,  temples  and  gardens.  May  the 
generous  and  noble  plan  for  an  Art-school  of  the  powerful 
author  of  "  Die  reisende  Maler  "  (The  Travelling  Painters) 
soon  come  into  the  hands  of  a  prince  who  will  not  think  that 
he  buys  too  dearly  with  his  regalia  the  more  worthy  crown- 
jewels  of  Art.  Must  royalty  and  art  be  everywhere  as 
far  distant  from  each  other  as  the  Sun  and  Venus — a  space 
which  a  cannon  ball  would  require  seventeen  3'ears  to 
traverse  ?  *  The  former  paragraph  clearly  excludes  poets 
from  the  proposed  school  of  art.  A  great  poetic  gallery, 
filled  with  novices  gathered  together  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  poetising,  could  at  most  but  furnish  poems  upon 
poetry  and  poets,  in  short,  but  mock-heroic  imitations  ;  an 
evil  which  the  acquirement  of  technical  facility,  the  great 
advantage  of  a  school  for  art,  does  not  compensate.  A  true 
poet  must,  like  Shakspeare  and  Cervantes,  have  struggled 
with  life  and  all  its  conditions;  then  he  may  take  the 
pencil,  not  merely  to  lay  colour  by  colour,  but  to  paint  his 
soul  upon  the  canvas.  If  an  intimate  acquaintance  with 
poems  led  to  writing  poems,  actors  ought  to  have  written 
the  best  plays. 

An  artistic  school  for  the  ear  is  less  required  from  defi- 
ciency of  teachers,  patterns  and  energy,  than  from  a  super- 
fluity of  them,  for  sometimes  the  teachers  will  drown  one 
another,  though  at  the  risk  of  being  themselves  out  of  tune. 
Fortunately  it  is  more  difficult  to  change  or  destroy  the 
simple  taste  of  the  hearing,  than  of  the  seeing  or  reading, 
public.  Behind  the  most  sensitive  ear  the  heart  always 
remains  open  to  the  simplest  melodies :  the  virtuoso  alone 
is  his  own  empoisoner. 

•  The  times,  unfortunately,  have  compelled  an  affirmative  answer  ; 
the  Bohool  of  art  remains  Btill  in  the  celestial  realm  of  the  Beautiful : 
and  its  architect  has  flown  away  to  it— the  man  of  great  heart,  th« 
pio^uj  man,  tlie  richly  gifted  poet. 


398  JEAN  PAUL  FKIKDEICH  RICHTER.     [fRAG.  VHI. 


§115. 

If  the  art  of  poetry  have  been  pronounced,  and  with 
justice,  to  embrace  all  human  nature,  to  be  the  Venus- 
girdle  which  enchantingly  combines  the  most  opposite 
powers,  the  most  graceful  alternate  transformation  of  form 
into  subject,  and  this  again  into  that,  like  the  candle 
whose  flame  assumes  a  shape,  and  yet  through  which  the 
wick  is  visible ;  if  this  be  so,  we  must  indeed  wonder  that 
the  study  of  this  unity  in  plurality  should  be  appointed  for 
that  time  of  life  in  which  variety  is  small,  and  the  power 
of  combining  it  weak  or  even  erring.  Must  not  children 
resemble  nations  on  whom  the  sun  of  beauty  first  shone 
after  the  tempest  of  their  wants  was  stilled  ?  And  does 
not  poetry,  the  bridal  ornament  of  Psyche,  require  her  to 
be  full-grown  and  a  bride?  Before  the  thirteenth  or 
fourteenth  year,  before  the  time  of  opening  manhood, 
which  throws  a  romantic  splendour  round  sun,  and  moon, 
and  spring,  and  sex,  and  poetrj'-,  the  child  regards  poetical 
flowers  as  so  many  dried  medicinal  herbs.  The  err(jr  of 
prematurely  introducing  a  child  to  the  treasures  of  poetry 
can  only  arise  from  the  a-sthetic  mistake  of  believing  the 
spirit  of  poetry  to  consist  less  in  the  whole  than  in  its 
variously  scattered,  dazzlino-  charms  of  sound,  pictures, 
events  and  feelings ;  for  these  a  child  has  naturally  a 
ready  ear.  Rhymers  and  verse  writers  may,  indeed,  play 
a  useful  part  at  an  early  age.  Ehyme  delights  both  the 
most  uncultivated  and  the  youngest  ear ;  and  the  harmony, 
of  full-sounding  prose  will  soon  melt  the  little  soul.  In- 
structive poetry,  resembling  circular  light-holders,  also ; 
is  good.  Songs,  too,  aie  passable.  Tales,  particularly 
Oriental  tales,  the  Arabian  lights'  Entertainments,  (those, 
romantic  summer  nights,  so  shorn  whether  to  men  or 
children !)  will  arouse  the  dreaming  poetic  heart  with 
gentle  charms  until  it  is  afterwards  strong  enough  to 
comprehend  the  lofty  lyric  ode,  the  wide-extended  level 
epic,  the  thronging  passions  of  tragedy. 

When  manhood  and  womanhood  have  kindled  the 
transitory  joy-fires  of  life,  and  all  their  powers  seek  unity . 
and  the  future,  then  let  the  poet  approach,  and  be  the 


CHAP.  I.]  LEVANA.  399 

Orpheus  who  animates  dead  bodies,  as  well  as  tames  wild 
beasts.    But  what  poets  shall  the  teacher  bring  ? 

§  146. 

Our  own!  Neither  Greek,  nor  Koman,  nor  Hebrew, 
nor  Indian,  nor  Fiench,  but  German.  Let  the  Englishman 
select  English  poets,  and  every  nation  its  own.  Only  when 
we  call  to  mind  the  poverty  of  the  dark  ages,  whose 
seeming  corpse  the  miracles  of  Greece  and  Eome  re- 
animated, can  we  comprehend  the  existing  absurdity  of 
not  educating  and  preparing  the  mind  by  means  of  native, 
related  and  young  beauties  for  those  of  foreign  and  distant 
ages ;  but  of  precisely  reversing  the  matter  and  placing 
him  among  strangers  instead  of  those  who  speak  his 
mother-tongue.  I'he  quickest  comprehension  and  percep- 
tion of  all  the  secondarv  tints  in  a  poet's  work,  the 
intensest  feeling  for  its  subject,  the  widest  embrace  of  its 
aim,  and  of  its  humour — all  this  is  only  possible  to  the 
reader  of  his  own  countryman,  not  of  any  foreign  wonderful 
being;  if  the  actual  conditions  of  his  native  country  help 
the  poet  to  colour,  they  also  help  the  reader  to  see :  she 
was  a  Roman  who  at  once  inspired  RafFaelle— the  Roman — 
Hs  a  mistress  and  a  Madonna.  Must  we  in  the  North  dig 
all  our  beauties  and  hopes,  like  vases  and  urns,  out  of 
sepulchres  ? 

We  may  do  so  rightly  if  we  speak  only  of  vases  and 
similar  objects ;  that  is  to  say,  of  the  artistic  education  of 
the  eye.  The  most  beautiful  forms  should  be  first  pre- 
sented to  the  eye — a  Grecian  Venus  to  a  Chinese.  But  if 
the  education  of  the  inner  sense  be  the  object,  offer  the 
nearest  first.  The  outer  sense  accustoms  itself,  by  degi  ees, 
to  the  most  preposterous  forms,  as  all  journals  of  fasliion 
show,  and  becomes  attached  to  them  by  length  of  time ; 
the  inner  sense  is  formed  by  the  contemplation  of  childish 
beauties  to  the  comprehension  of  mental  beauty.  Begin 
with  Raffaelle  and  Gluck,  but  not  with  l^ophocles. 

At  home  and  at  school  let  the  native  poets  be  first 
p-aced  on  the  altar  as  gods  of  the  household  and  the 
country ;  let  the  little  child  rise  from  the  lesser  to  the 
greater  gods.    What  love  of  country  must  not  that  hanging 


400  JEAN  PAUL  FKIEDKICH   RICHTER.      [fRAG.  VIII 

on  the  lips  of  native  poets  inspire !  And  to  what  beau- 
tiful slow  reading  should  we  not  be  accustomed,  (for  the 
German  reads  every  thing  quickly  that  is  not  very  far 
removed  in  distance,  age  and  language)  if  one  of  Klopstock's 
odes,  for  instance,  were  as  critically  dissected  as  one  of 
Horace's!  What  power  should  we  not  obtain  over  our 
own  language,  if,  at  the  age  when  schoolmasters  usually 
discourse  about  Pindar  and  Aristophanes,  we  were  intro- 
duced to  the  sonorous  odes  of  Klopstock  and  Voss,  into 
the  antique  temple  of  Goethe,  the  lofty  dome  of  Schiller ! 
For  even  our  own  language  must  speak  to  us  according 
to  a  model,  if  it  is  to  produce  any  effect.  Hence  the  old 
humanists  (and  some  modern  ones  too)  wrote  Latin  best, 
and  both  old  and  new  worldlings  write  French  best,  and 
both  parlies  often  wrote  miserable  German :  Leibnitz  and 
the  Eectors  on  the  one  side,  and  Frederick  the  Great  on 
the  other,  confirm  my  observation. 


CHAPTER  n. 

CLASSICAL   EDUCATION. 
§    147. 


For  the  sake  of  brevity  I  begin  this  chapter  with  the 
request  that  the  reader  will  first  peruse,  in  the  Invisible 
Lodge,  Book  First,  the  supplement  headed  "  Why  I  give 
my  Gustavus  witty  and  bad  authors,  but  forbid  the 
classical,  I  mean  Greek  and  Latin  writers;"  thereby  I 
shall  be  spared  both  copying  and  printing  it  over  again ; 
and  also  the  bad  attempt  to  clothe  the  same  thoughts,  or 
soul,  with  another  body.  I  have  not  yet  met  with  any 
refutation  of  that  paragraph ;  nor,  during  the  twenty 
years  which  have  elapsed  since  its  publication,  have  I 
been  able  to  refute  myself. 

What  follows  might  be  appended  to  a  second  or  third 
edition. 

I  ask  whether  those  men  who  have  given  us  Wieland'ii; 


CHAP.  II.]  LEVANA.  401 

explanation  of  the  satires  of  Horace,  Voss's  translation  of 
Homer,  Schleiermacher's  introductory  translations  of 
Plato's  discourses,  have  sprung  from  that  Latin  town 
which  Maupertuis  recommended  to  be  founded  ?  Only 
men  of  mind,  of  power,  and  of  education,  completed  by 
more  and  higher  studies  than  mere  philology,  only  chil- 
dren born  on  fortunate  days,  such  as  Goethe  and  Herder, 
have  ever  seen  the  spirit  of  antiquity ;  the  rest  have 
only  beheld,  instead,  treasures  of  words  and  gleanings  of 
flowers.  Is  it  not  madness  to  think  it  even  possible  that 
a  boy  of  fourteen  or  sixteen,  however  great  his  abilities, 
can  comprehend  the  harmony  of  poetry  and  deep  thougnt 
contained  in  one  of  Plato's  discourses,  or  the  worldly 
persiflage  of  Horace's  satires,  when  the  genius  itself  has 
not  conducted  the  men  I  name  to  the  pure  cold  heights 
of  antiquity  until  long  after  the  fiery  season  of  youth  ? 
Why  do  teachers  demand  what  they  can  so  seldom  do 
themselves?  I  entreat  them  to  think  partly  of  the  in- 
difference with  which  they  and  the  Italian  savans  await 
the  unrolling  of  the  eight  hundred  manuscripts  in 
Herculaneum ;  partly  of  the  stupidity  with  which  they 
first  mistook,  and  afterwards  criticised,  the  new  Greek 
spirit  of  Goethe  in  his  elegies  on  the  antique  at  Weimar 
partly  of  the  numberless  mistakes  they  have  made  in 
attributing  a  Grecian  resemblance  to  many  a  flat  produc- 
tion, merely  on  account  of  its  German  dulness  and  French 
form,*  and  denying  it  to  such  pure,  powerful  works  as 
those  of  Herder.  And  does  not  the  preference  which  the 
youth  of  our  universities  manifests  towards  every  new 
hairy  comet  really  show  what  is  effected  by  the  ancient 
astronomy  in  our  youthful  training  places?  And  is  it 
possible,  even  if  all  other  things  were  different,  that  the 
tender,  indivisible  form  of  beauty  can  be  appreciated  if 
grammatic  divisions  break  it,  like  the  Medicean  Venus, 
into  thirteen  fragments  and  thirty  smaller  pieces.  What, 
in  this  case,  the  youth  may  gladly  confound  with  the 
enjoyment  of  the  whole,  and  with  the  goddess  of  flowers, 
is  the  pleasure  derived  from  some  wayside  flower  in  the 
sandy  desert  of  philological  exercises ;  and  the  ordinary 

*  E.g.  to  many  a  one  of  Wieland's,  wherein  there  is  often  nothing 
Greek  but  the  scene  and  the  month-name. 

i  2  o 


402  JEAN  PAUL   FRTEDEICH  KICHTER.     [fRAG.  VIII. 

teacher  mistakes  his  sand  bath  for  the  floral  deity.  This 
perversity  causes  the  study  of  the  ancients,  which  must 
present  its  casket  of  phrases  at  every  boy's  toilet,  to  give 
his  concetti  to  the  Italian,  his  host  of  synonymes  to  the 
English,  and  to  the  German  every  taste  which  he  can 
find.  And  thus  the  new  age  is  lost  to  us  by  the  wounds 
of  beauty. 

§  148. 

Let  antiquity  be  the  Venus  and  morning  star  which 
rises  over  the  evening  of  our  North.  It  depends  on  our 
position  with  regard  to  the  star  of  beauty  whether  it 
shall  shine  upon  us  with  a  full  or  only  a  partial  light. 
The  language  of  the  ancients  is  a  very  different  thing. 
So,  again,  is  the  spirit  of  their  history,  or  subject ;  and, 
thirdly,  the  spirit  of  their  form,  or  poetry. 

The  learning  of  the  ancient  languages  and  their 
harmonic  beauty  has  no  prematurity  to  dread ;  but  why 
are  these  canonical  writings  of  the  spirit  desecrated  into 
books  for  teaching  the  alphabet  and  reading  ?  Do  not 
people  understand  that  no  mind,  least  of  all  a  child's,  can 
turn  at  once  in  such  opposite  directions  as  language  and 
subjecjt,  even  though  it  be  a  poet's  subject,  require  ? 

Especial  care  should  be  taken  never  to  reduce  a  reality 
to  a  mere  arrangement  of  words,  particularly  because  the 
recollection  rejects  as  indigestible  all  single,  isolated 
matters.  If  the  fact  stands  prominently  forth,  the  word 
or  name  is  often  lost  sight  of.  Thus  it  has  frequently 
been  remarked  that  those  boys  find  it  most  difficult  to 
remember  the  names  of  the  heroes  in  ancient  Greek  or 
Eoman  story,  who  have  their  deeds  impressed  most 
vividly  on  their  minds.  So,  in  novels,  the  interest  of  the 
story  and  of  the  hero  will  sometimes  make  a  young  lady 
read  the  whole  without  knowing  the  names  of  the  hero 
or  heroine,  which  yet  stand  upon  every  page,  and  cause 
her  to  forget  them  in  their  lives  as  completely  as  the 
Greeks  who,  according  to  Lessing,  named  their  tragedies 
after  persons  who  did  not  appear  in  them. 

What  Greek  or  Latin  books  are  the  most  suitable  for 
teaching  those  languages  ?  Partly  imitations,  which  may 
be  made  in  order  not  to  lead  a  deaf  and  dumb  spirit  to 


CHAP,  n.]  LEVANA.  403 

the  divine  oracles  of  the  ancients;  partly  also  those 
ancient  books  which  possess  most  interest  for  the  youth- 
ful mind :  for  instance,  the  younger  Pliny  (as  a  forerunner 
of  the  French  letter  writers),  and  even  the  elder  Pliny ; 
at  least  he  is  much  more  suitable  than  Tacitus,  so  full  of 
poison,  the  world  and  life;  also  Lucan,  Seneca,  Ovid, 
Martial,  Quintilian,  Cicero's  youthful  orations,  &c. 

In  Greek  the  romantic  Odyssey,  in  spite  of  its  im- 
portance, might  occupy  an  early  place,  then  Plutarch, 
^lian,  and  even  the  Plutarch  of  philosophers,  Diogenes 
Laertius.  The  ages  of  iron  and  brass,  like  the  metals 
after  which  they  are  named,  should  be  laid  at  once  on  the 
surface,  and  the  nobler  metals  raised  afterwards  upon 
them.  In  short,  to  obtain  strength,  observe  the  Grecian 
law  which  forbade  athletes  even  to  look  upon  beauties.      ? 

The  fortifications  round  the  city  of  God  have  been  laid 
by  the  ancients  for  every  age  in  the  history  of  their  own. 
The  present  ranks  of  humanity  would  sink  irrecoverably 
if  the  youth  did  not  take  its  way  through  the  silent 
temple  of  the  mighty  past  into  the  market-place  of  after- 
life. The  names  of  Socrates,  Cato,  Epaminondas,  and 
others,  are  pyramids  of  the  power  of  will.  Rome,  Athens, 
Sparta,  are  the  three  crowning  cities  of  the  giant  Geryon  ; 
and  after-ages  fix  their  eyes  on  the  youth  as  on  the 
primitive  mountains  of  humanity.  Not  to  know  the 
ancients  is  to  be  an  ephemeron  which  neither  sees  the 
sun  rise  nor  set.  But  do  not  expose  this  antique  temple 
as  though  it  were  a  receptacle  for  cast-off  customs  and 
phrases,  and  as  though  its  holy  relics,  instead  of  being 
worshipped,  might,  like  warriors'  bones,  be  converted  into 
knife-handles  and  the  like.  The  man  can  draw  the 
history  of  the  ancients  from  their  own  springs ;  the  child 
may  draw  them  from  the  man  :  one  ancient  alone  I  would 
except,  Plutarch,  from  whose  hand  the  young  may  receive 
the  animating  palm  wine  of  the  mighty  past.  But  school- 
masters willingly  dacrific©  the  purification  of  the  soul  by 
ancient  history  to  a  pure  Grecian.  So  Demosthenes, 
destitute  of  ornament,  poor  in  flowery  garlands,  rich  in 
chains  of  argument,  and  rich  in  andst  is  sacrificed  to 
sounding,  flowery  Cicero. 

It  were  surely  well  to  consult  the  age  and  advance- 

2  D  2 


404  JEAN  PAUL   FRIEDRICH   RICHTER.     [fRAG.  VIII. 

ment  of  the  pupils  in  schools,  and  begin  with  the  easier 
classical  authors,  Cicero,  Yirgil,  Livy,  Herodotus,  Ana- 
creon,  Tyrtaeus,  Euripides;  afterwards  advancing  to  the 
more  difficult,  Horace,  Caesar,  Lucretius,  Sophocles,  Plato, 
Aristophanes.  Here,  as  is  natural,  that  orderly  disorder 
is  scorned  by  which  masters  place  the  difficulty  of  under- 
standing an  author  in  the  phrases,  rather  than  in  the 
higher  spirit ;  just  similarly  in  a  French  school  Goethe 
would  be  read  by  the  lower  classes,  Schiller  by  the  second, 
Haller  by  the  first,  and  I  by  nobody.  I  call  Virgil  an 
easy  classical  author ;  Caesar  a  difficult  one ;  the  odes  ot 
Horace  are  easy,  his  satires  difficult ;  Klopstock  is  oftener 
easy  than  Goethe,  because  merely  verbal  difficulties  may 
be  overcome  by  teaching  and  industry,  but  mental  diffi- 
culties only  by  the  maturity  of  thought,  which  comes 
with  years. 

If  it  be  asked  where  time  is  to  be  found  for  the  so- 
called  knowledge  of  things,  and  the  studies  whereby  a 
livelihood  is  to  be  obtained,  since  their  subjects  constantly 
increase,  and  we  resemble  an  army,  the  last  ranks  of  which 
must  march  quickest — I  tranquilly  answer,  Give  natural 
philosophy  and  natural  history,  astronomy  and  geometry, 
and  abundant  supplies  of  "  bread  studies,"  in  the  school- 
rooms and  lecture-rooms  of  your  gymnasiums ;  and  in  so 
doing  you  will  give  the  boys  ten  times  more  pleasure 
than  they  receive  from  the  unfolding  of  the  mummy 
bandages  of  the  ancient  graces ;  thus,  too,  you  impart 
the  common  nourishment  needed  by  both  the  future 
divisions  of  your  pupils  into  sons  of  the  muses  and  sons 
of  labour.  Then  the  higher  schools  are  reserved  for  the 
instructions  of  the  greatest  teachers,  the  ancients. 


(    406    ) 


NINTH  FEAGMENT, 

OB 

KEY-STONE. 


§  149. 


A  TREATISE  on  education  does  not  include  the  theory  of 
instruction,  whose  wide  realm  embraces  the  mistakes 
of  all  sciences  and  arts ;  nor  the  theory  of  remedies, 
which  would  require  libraries  instead  of  volumes  for 
the  complication  of  mistakes,  years,  positions  and  relations. 
At  the  same  time  no  science  is  entirely  disconnected  from 
the  rest ;  the  feet  cannot  move  without  the  hands. 

§  150. 

Lavater,  in  a  painted  series  of  four-and- twenty  faces, 
converted  a  frog's  head  into  an  Apollo's  :  I  would  that  a 
poem  could,  in  a  similar  way,  depict  the  restoration  of 
some  naturally  gifted  but  ruined  child  to  the  pure  features 
of  humanity,  instead  of  taking  a  sun-god  to  school  as 
Xenophon  and  Rousseau  did.  Yes,  one  might  exhibit  an 
educational  history  of  many  false  cures  eflfected  on  the 
same  human  limb ;  and  it  would  be  nothing  else  than 
useful  and  difficult.  How  often  has  not  the  ill-set  arm  of 
humanity  to  bo  broken  afresh  so  as  to  be  rightly  healed ! 

§  151. 

The  best  and  most  complete  education  cannot  exhibit 
its  true  power  upon  one  child,  but  upon  a  number  of  united 
children; — romantic  Cyropedagogues  of  one    individual 


406  JEAN   PAUL   FEIEDKICH   EICHTER.        [fRAG.  IX. 

should  think  of  this : — a  lawgiver  influences  multitudes 
by  multitudes  ;  one  Jew  alone  could  not  produce  a  Moses. 
But  this  very  Mosaic  people — which  has  spread  unaltered 
through  the  ocean  of  all  time,  as  sea-plants  in  all  the  zones 
of  the  ocean,  and  has  retained  its  Mosaic  colouring  even 
when  burning  Africa  has  changed  its  bodily  hue — is  the 
strongest  witness  to  the  power  of  education,  for,  during  its 
dispersion,  the  Mosaic  education  of  the  people  can  only  be 
maintained  by  private  education.  Let  this  fact  inspire 
all  parents  with  courage  to  disregard  all  that  is  malignant 
in  the  future  into  which  they  must  send  their  children. 

^§  152. 

For  the  same  reason  this  courage  should  not  be  lessened 
by  a  well-known  contradictory  appearance ;  namely,  that 
children,  like  plants  acclimatised  to  the  nursery  and  school- 
room, can  scarcely  be  recognised  in  a  strange  aj)artment, 
in  a  carriage,  in  the  country,  or  at  midnight.  "  It  was 
all  forced  fruit,"  says  then  the  good,  vexed  father,  "  and  I 
have  lost  my  labour  and  my  hope."  But  if  the  angry  man 
will  then  sit  down  and  consider  that  he,  a  plant  equally 
acclimatised  to  his  position,  has  frequently  been  made 
unlike  himself  by  strangeness  of  place  or  circumstances, 
yet  with  very  transitory  injury  to  his  powers,  he  may 
cool  his  wrath  by  applying  the  same  observation,  though 
in  a  stronger  degree,  to  his  children  who,  being  more 
excitable,  feeble  and  inexperienced,  must  naturally  obey 
and  succumb  to  every  new  presence. 

§  153. 

In  some  circumstances  we  cannot  be  sufficiently  diffuse 
with  children,  in  others  not  sufficiently  short.  Speak  at 
greatest  length  in  tales,  and  when  you  wish  to  give  the 
passions  time  to  cool,  as  a  kind  of  rhetorical  signal  that 
something  important  is  to  come.  The  utmost  brevity 
should  be  used  in  confronting  logical  sentences  for  exercise 
— in  forbidding — and  further,  in  necessary  punishments  ; 
then,  after  the  billows  are  laid,  loquacity  may  be  advan< 
tageously  resumed. 


FRtLQ.   IX.]  LEVANA.  407 

§  154. 

If  a  father  be  boldly  obedient  to  the  right  rule  of  letting 
a  boy,  especially  one  destined  to  a  learned  profession,  lie 
fallow  during  the  first  five  years  of  life,  only  learning  what 
he  teaches  himself,  so  that  his  body  may  become  strong 
enough  to  bear  its  future  mental  treasures,  let  him  be 
prepared  when  the  child  first  goes  to  school  for  a  difficulty 
which  may,  perhaps,  last  some  months ;  it  is  this, — that 
the  boy,  hitherto  accustomed  only  to  his  own  mental 
teaching,  cannot  immediately  apply  with  ease  to  instruc- 
tion from  without,  but  receives  the  foreign  rays  at  first  as 
in  a  dispersing  concave  glass.  But  by  and  by  they  will 
be  collected  and  combined  by  a  convex  mirror. 

Since  I  have  again  fallen  on  the  subject  of  instruction 
which,  especially  in  later  years,  becomes  continually  more 
and  more  closely  combined  with  education,  I  know  not 
how  better  to  make  amends  for  my  digression  than  by 
pursuing  it  and  here  recording  the  opinion  of  an  excellent 
scholar  of  my  acquaintance  rich  alike  in  feeling,  learning, 
and  genius,*  that  a  boy  of  five  years  old  can  be  sent 
to  no  better  preparatory  school  for  a  learned  education, 
though  but  for  a  few  hours  daily,  than  to  one  of  only 
three  classes,  Latin,  mathematics,  and  history.  In  fact, 
these  three  kinds  of  knowledge  attune  the  mind  to  the 
threefold  harmony  of  education.  First,  the  Latin 
language,  by  its  brevity  and  great  dissimilarity  to  our 
own,  exercises  the  child's  mind  in  logic,  and  is,  therefore, 
a  preparatory  school  of  philosophy.  Brevity  of  speech 
gives  comprehensiveness  of  thought.  Secondly,  mathe- 
matics, as  a  mediator  between  the  intuitions  of  the  senses 
and  of  the  mind,  excites  and  forms  a  power  distinct  from 
philosophy,  and  not  sufficiently  esteemed  in  its  connection 
with  the  material  universe;  which,  by  the  analysing  of 
space  from  without  and  time  from  within,  brings  the 
ultimate  conclusions  of  numbers  within  the  power  of 
thought.  Thirdly,  history,  like  religion,  uaites  all 
learning  and  power;  especially  ancient  history,  that  is, 
the  history  of  the  nations  of  the  youthful  world,  Grecian 

•  Prof.  L.  H.  Wagner  iu  Bairenth,  already  favourably  known  to 
Ifae  learned  public  by  Ms  logic,  physiology,  and  his  wide  uttainmenta. 


408  JEAN   PAUL  FRIEDKICH  KICHTER.     [FRAG.  IX. 

and  Roman,  Jewish  and  early  Christian.  As  the  epic 
poem  and  the  romance  may  be  made  to  contain  the  float- 
ing materials  of  all  knowledge,  their  mother,  history,  may 
still  more  easily  be  made  into  the  firm  pulpit  of  every 
moral  and  religious  opinion ;  and  every  department  of 
morality,  moral  theology,  moral  philosophy  and  casuistry, 
finds  its  leader  in  ancient  history.  The  young  heart  lives 
in  the  mighty  youthful  past,  and,  by  this  active  art  of 
poetry,  buried  centuries  are  raised  from  the  dead  in  a  few 
school-hours.  The  devils  removed  into  historic  distance 
grieve  less,  and  tempt  far  less,  than  when  standing  in  our 
presence ;  the  angels,  on  the  contrary,  cleared  by  distance 
from  neighbouring  mists,  shine  and  sparkle  more  bril- 
liantly than  ever ;  and  they  tell  us  what  there  is  yet 
to  do  in  the  future  which  may  be  worthy  of  the  past. 
History — if  you  are  not  determined  to  make  it  into  the 
biography  of  the  devil — is  the  third  Bible ;  for  the  book 
of  nature  is  the  second;  and  ancient  history  alone  can 
convert   and  improve  modern  history. 

The  father  of  Levana — although  in  the  case  of  a 
goddess  this  name  would  be  more  humbly  and  appropri- 
ately changed  into  worshipper — has  (he  ventures  now  to 
recall  to  himself)  kept  the  promise  of  the  preface  to  jest 
but  little.  He  has  wanted  room — but  that  another  book 
will  furnish — rather  than  occasion  for  two  satires,  both 
directed  against  one  evil — the  affliction  of  children — 
teaching.     A  short  serious  epitome  must  be  permitted. 

Certainly,  as  regards  children's  sufferings,  we  must 
admit  that  nature,  which  makes  them  cry  sooner  than 
laugh,  has  the  precedence  of  us.  Kot  the  human  egg,  but 
the  bee's,  is  laid  upon  honey.  Among  all  entrances  into 
new  circumstances  none  is  so  important  as  that  into  life, 
and  there  also  the  new  apprentice  must  pay  his  footing ; 
or,  as  a  novice  in  life's  mysteries,  he,  like  the  ancient 
Greek,  must  be  severely  scourged ;  or  he  must  receive  that 
which  in  prisons — and  such  Plato  esteeryed  the  earth  to 
be — is  called  a  welcome,  which  does  not  consist  in  the  old 
German  sparkling  goblet  (that  his  mother's  breast  offers 
liim),  but  in  what  most  would  think  a  flogging.  Accord- 
ing to  the  Catholic  church,  children,  those  of  Bethlehem 
under  Herod,  were  the  first  martyrs ;  it  is  the  emblem  of 


FRAG.   IX.]  LEVANA.  409 

what  still  exists.  According  to  the  same  church  the  un- 
baptized  passed  either  into  hell  or  into  purgatory;  but 
they  pass  between  two  fires  upon  earth  if  they  pursue 
the  way  from  the  first  to  the  second  sacrament.  If 
baptism  be  necessary  to  salvation,  so  also  is  the  sacrament 
of  the  Eucharist ;  therefore  before  the  Lord's  Supper,  the 
feast  of  love,  you  justly  repress  whatever  seems  rather  to 
resemble  hate.  And  so  the  tears  which  Garrick  could 
draw  by  the  mere  repetition  of  the  alphabet,  the  child  soon 
learns  to  shed  by  itself.  But  among  all  the  schoolmasters 
who  have  flogged  either  the  author  or  his  readers,  and 
endeavoured  to  enlighten  their  minds  with  the  cane  as 
with  a  pedagoojic  lamp-post,  or  who  have  understood  how 
to  use  their  fists  like  players  on  the  French  horn,  who 
apply  theirs  to  the  wide  mouth  of  the  horn  and  draw 
forth  its  delicate  semi-tones ;  yet  among  all  schoolmasters, 
I  say,  it  is  a  rare  and  difficult  thing  to  find  a  John 
Jacob  Hauberle.  Which  of  us  can  boast,  like  Hauberle, 
of  having  administered,  during  his  schoolmastership  of 
fifty-one  years  and  seven  months,  911,527*  strokes  of  the 
cane  and' 124,000  of  the  rod;  also  20,989  blows  with  the 
ruler;  not  only  10,235  boxes  on  the  ear,  but  also  7905 
tugs  at  the  same  member;  and  a  sum  total  of  1,115,800 
blows  with  the  knuckles  on  the  head?  Who  besides 
Jacob  Hauberle  has  given  22,763  impositions,  partly  in 
the  Bible,  partly  in  the  catechism,  partly  in  the  Psalm 
book,  partly  in  the  grammar,  as  with  four  syllogistic 
logical  figures,  or  a  sonate  a  quatre  mains  ?  And  did  he  not 
threaten  the  rod  to  1707  children  who  did  not  receive 
it,  and  make  777  kneel  upon  round  hard  peas,  and  631 
upon  a  sharp-edged  piece  of  wood,  to  which  are  to  be 
added  a  corps  of  500 1  ri<lers  on  the  wooden  horse  ?  For  if 
any  one  had  done  this  why  did  he  not  keep  an  account  of 
his  blows,  like  Hauberle,  from  whom  alone  we  have  to 
learn  this  interesting  intelligence  as  from  a  Flogging 
Diary,  or  Martyrologium,  or  Imperial  School  Flogging 
Journal  ?  But  1  fear  most  teachers  only  deserve  the  con- 
temptuous surname  of  CfiBsarius.f  who  was  called  "  the 

♦  These  numbers  are  to  be  found  in  the  fourth  quarterly  number 
of  the  third  year  of  the  Pe<lagogic  Kntertainiuent  for  '1\  achera. 

t  See  the  very  learned  notes  to  the  drama  '  Fust  of  Strumberg,*  by 
Maier. 


410  JEAN    PAUL   FRIEDRICH   RICHTEE.       |  FRAG.  IX. 

Mild"  beca^  he  sufifered  no  nun  to  receive  more  than 
six-and-thirty  lashes. 

If  the  benefit  to  be  derived  from  thus  converting  life 
into  a  hell  be  any  thing  more  than  seeming,  good  infernal 
machines — in  which  we  always  succeed  better  than  in 
celestial  machines — ought  to  be  made  for  the  purpose,  and 
people  attached  to  them  expressljT-  to  torment.  No  one 
torments  better  than  one  who  has  himself  been  tormented 
—monks,  for  instance.  If  you  wish  me  to  weep,  says 
Horace,  you  must  first  weep  yourself.  And  the  school- 
master can  do  the  last ;  no  one  could  have  better  sat  to  an 
Albert  Durer,  who  loved  to  paint  crucifixions,  than  the 
united  body  of  German  schoolmasters ;  and  if  the  cruci- 
fixion came  at  the  conclusion  of  Christ's  ministry,  with  us 
they  accompany  each  other.  England,  which  gives  a  sub- 
rector  a  yearly  salary  of  a  thousand  pounds,  will  apparently 
attain  this  end  less  quickly — although  in  all  its  schools  it 
will  exalt  the  rod  to  the  post  of  educational  honour — than 
countries  where,  as  in  Prussia,  the  whole  average  salaries 
of  schoolmasters  amount  only  to  250  thalers ;  so  we  may 
fairly  reckon  that  184  masters  may  be  pointed  out,  who 
only  receive  from  five  to  ten  thalers.*  Five  thalers! — 
Certainly  it  might  be  less,  and  in  Baireuth  it  is  so ;  for 
there  a  village  schoolmaster  receives  from  every  pupil,  for 
the  months  of  November,  December,  January,  February, 
March  and  April,  twenty-four  kreuzers,  or  a  monthly 
stipend  of  four  kreuzers.  But  the  schoolmaster — which 
perhaps  would  not  be  expected — grows  fat  in  the  summer 
holidays,  because  he  goes  out  to  pasture  with  the  cattle 
(it  is  only  in  winter  that  he  is  a  shepherd  of  souls).  The 
evil  effects  of  this  system  soon  break  out  in  him,  for  he 
drives  the  cattle  away  from  wrong  roads  with  much  fewer 
blows  than  the  children.  The  receipt  of  four  kreuzers 
repaid  by  pain ! 

Isocrates  wept  from  shame  to  receive  college  fees, 
amounting  to  three  thousand  pounds,  from  his  hundred 
pupils :  might  not  shame  and  weeping  find  a  more  ap- 
propriate place  here  ?  Happily  the  state,  which  converts 
schools  into  industrial  schools,  for  the  pupils  rather  than 

*  Alg.  Lit.  Zeitung.    No.  267.    1805. 


FBAG.  IX.]  LEVANA.  411 

the  masters,  declares  that  none  but  clergymen  shall  be 
schoolmasters,  and  students  of  divinity  house-tutors  for 
the  higher  classes  of  pupils  (as  the  Dalai-Lama  may  only 
be  attended  by  priests).  Theologians  are  active  Theo- 
pftschists,  and  every  Bible  comes  into  their  hands  sooner 
than  the  Biblia  in  nummis ;  fur  it  has  ever  been  a  Pro- 
testant principle,  in  order  not  to  separate  them  too  far 
from  the  Catholic  clergy,  to  compel  the  Lutheran  minis- 
ters strictly  to  keep  the  vows  of  poverty.  In  short,  they 
have  little ;  therefore,  all  the  more  is  to  be  taken  from ' 
them  by  giving  them  the  office  of  schoolmasters. 

If  we  ascend  to  the  higher  scholastic  positions  we  find 
that  where  the  young  men,  having  attained  the  honour  of 
the  gymnasium,  need  fewer  mortifications,  there  also  the 
teachers  require  fewer  ;  thus,  a  head  master  always  receives 
a  trifle  more  pay  than  his  subordinate.  To  which  is  to  be 
added  a  second  reason ;  that  the  latter  has  more  work  and, 
consequently,  requires  more  spurring,  more  oil  in  the 
joints  and  wheels,  to  accomplish  his  heavier  movements — 
that  is  to  say,  more  unemployed  gastric  juice.  For,  ac- 
cording to  an  ancient  political  law,  the  labour  and  trouble 
of  an  office  increase  in  inverse  proportion  to  its  remunera- 
tion ;  and,  where  the  former  are  altogether  wanting,  there 
that  law  of  the  artisans  is  acted  upon,  according  to  which 
every  travelling  journeyman  who  cannot  find  work  in  a 
place  receives  a  present. 

It  is,  however,  so  ordered  that  even  in  the  highest  school 
offices,  as  in  fruitful  Hindostan,  where  there  are  yearly 
three  harvests  and  a  famine,  the  four  quarterly  harvests 
shall  not  always  exclude  a  famine.  As  regards  drink,  we 
know,  from  Langen's  clerical  law,  that  Karpzov  bestowed 
on  all  school  teachers  the  privilege  of  exemption  from  tax 
on  all  liquors.  In  this  the  state  has  not  had  so  much 
regard,  as  at  first  appears,  to  the  wants  and  thirst,  of  the 
profession,  but  has  followed  the  old  custom  of  giving  still 
greater  privileges  to  schoolmasters;  such  as,  exemption 
from  the  taxes  on  Tokay  wine  and  pheasants,  and  license 
for  all  their  pearls  and  jewels  to  enjoy  the  immunities  ot 
students'  goods ! 


412  JEAN  PAUL  PRIEDRICH  RICHTER.       I  FRAG.  IX. 


§   155. 

But  enough  of  this  !  I  spoke  above  of  a  hostile  futuro 
for  our  children :  every  father  holds  out  this  prospect, 
which  he  has  inherited  from  his  own.  Who,  indeed,  has 
been  so  blessed,  when  finally  closing  his  eyes,  as  to  con- 
template two  fair  worlds,  his  own  yet  hidden  and  one  left 
behind  for  his  children  ?  The  whole  of  humanity  always 
seems  to  us  a  salt  sea  which  the  sweet  showers  and  streams 
of  individuals  do  not  sweeten ;  yet  the  pure  water  on  the 
earth  is  as  little  dried  up  as  the  salt  sea  ;  nay,  it  even  rises 
from  it.  Therefore,  0  father,  the  higher  thou  thinkest 
thyself,  whether  truly  or  not,  exalted  above  thy  age, 
(consequently  above  its  daughters,  whom  yet  thou  must, 
however  unwillingly,  see  thy  sons  marry,)  all  the  more 
thank-offerings  hast  thou  to  Jay  on  the  altar  of  the  past 
which  has  made  thee  so  noble ;  and  how  canst  thou  better 
present  them  to  thy  parents  than  by  the  hands  of  thy 
children  ? 

What,  then,  are  children  really?  Their  constant  pre- 
sence, and  their  often  disturbing  wants,  conceal  from  us 
the  charms  of  these  angelic  forms,  which  we  know  not 
how  to  name  with  sufficient  beauty  and  tenderness — blos- 
soms, dew-drops,  stars,  butterflies.  But  when  you  kiss 
and  love  them,  you  give  and  feel  all  their  names  !  A  single 
child  upon  the  earth  would  seem  to  us  a  wonderful  angel, 
come  from  some  distant  home,  who,  unaccustomed  to  our 
strange  language,  manners  and  air,  looked  at  us  speechless 
and  inquisitive,  but  pure  as  a  Kaffaelle's  infant  Jesus; 
and  hence,  we  can  always  adopt  every  new  child  into  the 
child's  place,  but  not  every  new  friend  into  the  friend's 
place.  And  daily  from  the  unknown  world  these  pure 
beings  are  sent  upon  the  wild  earth ;  and  sometimes  they 
alight  on  slave-coasts,  or  battle-fields,  or  in  prison  for 
execution ;  and  sometimes  in  flowery  valleys,  and  on  lofty 
mountains ;  sometimes  in  a  most  baleful,  sometimes  in  a 
most  holy  age ;  and  after  the  loss  of  their  only  father  they 
seek  an  adopted  one  here  below. 

I  once  composed  a  poem  on  the  Last  Day  and  the  two 
last  children : — its  latter  part  will  serve  for  a  conclusion. 


FRAG.  IX.]  LEVANA.  4l3 

'*  So  go  down  to  the  earth,"  said  the  angel  to  two  littlo 
naked  sonls,  '*and  be  bom  as  brother  and  sister!"  It  will 
be  very  pretty  down  there,  said  they  both,  and  flew  hand 
in  hand  to  the  earth,  which  was  already  enveloped  in  the 
flames  of  the  last  day  and  from  which  the  dead  were 
rising.  "  Look  there !  "  said  the  brother,  "  these  are  very 
big,  tall  children;  the  flowers,  compared  to  them,  are 
quite  little:  they  will  certainly  carry  ns  about  every 
where  and  tell  us  about  every  thing ;  they  are  very  large 
angels,  sister ! "  "  But  see,"  answered  she,  "  that  great 
angel  and  every  one  has  clothing  round  him,  and  the 
moniing-red  glows  over  the  whole  earth."  "  But  look," 
gaid  he,  "  the  sun  has  fallen  upon  the  earth  and  it  bums 
everywhere;  and  there  a  gigantic  dew-drop  makes  fiery 
waves,  and  look  how  the  great  angels  plunge  into  it." 
*'  They  stretch  their  hands  upwards,"  said  she,  "  and  kiss 
them  to  us."  "  And  hark !  "  he  said,  "  how  the  thunder 
sings,  and  the  stars  dance  about  among  those  great  child- 
ren." "  Which  are  the  great  children,"  asked  she,  "  who 
are  to  be  our  two  parents?"  "  Dost  thou  not  see,"  replied 
he,  "  how  these  angels  sleep  under  the  earth  and  then  i  ise 
up  from  it?  Let  us  fly  quickly!"  And  the  children 
approached  nearer  to  the  flaming  earth  and  said,  "  Look 
kindly  upon  us,  ye  parents,  and  do  not  hurt  us,  and  play 
with  us  a  long,  long  time,  and  tell  us  many  tales,  and 
kiss  us ! " 

They  were  bom  just  as  the  world,  full  of  sins,  vanished, 
and  they  remained  alone;  their  little  hands  played  with 
the  flames,  and  at  last  they  also,  like  Adam  and  Eve,  were 
driven  away,  and  the  world  closed  with  the  Paradise  of 
Children. 


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